The Autistic Obsession

Libertarians and I agree on almost everything. Except the one thing that matters.

Public choice theory is one of the most revealing windows into the libertarian political mind. Not because it is wrong, exactly. Because of what it assumes without knowing it assumes it.

The framework goes roughly like this: there are universally agreeable sociopolitical outcomes — arrangements that, if only people reasoned correctly and the right incentive structures were in place, everyone would prefer. The obstacles to these arrangements are epistemic and structural: collective action problems (the tragedy of the commons), majoritarian tyrannies over minorities, rent-seeking by political actors, information asymmetries that prevent markets from clearing efficiently. Apply the right analytical tools, design the right institutions, and the path to optimal outcomes becomes visible.

It is a scientific approach to the problem of collective governance. It has the feel of rigor, of objectivity, of having transcended the messy subjectivity of ordinary political argument. James Buchanan won a Nobel Prize for it. It is taught in economics departments as positive social science.

What it actually is, is normative philosophy with the normative assumptions hidden in the foundation.