Buchanan's explanation contains a basic assumption of the public choice theory: the assumption of "economic man". Buchanan used the assumption of "economic man" as an analytical weapon to explore how the behavior of economic man determines and controls collective behavior in the political field, especially the restrictive role it plays in public choices, and thus proves that It is possible to have flaws in the political sphere.
What is "economic man"? Microeconomists believe that as a person, no matter what position he is in, human nature is the same. The most basic motivation is to maximize personal interests and personal satisfaction, and assume that everyone has economic human characteristics. Based on this assumption, Buchanan believed that through similar behavioral assumptions, some basic predictions about the structural characteristics of collective choice can also be made. Its theoretical value is: first, it ensures the consistency of the analysis of human behavior. Prior to this, Keynesian economists adopted two completely opposite standards for the analysis of human behavior. In the field of market choices, everyone was assumed to be self-interested; in the field of political choices, self-interested people became An altruist who is "charity and philanthropy". Secondly, it is the theoretical premise for comparative analysis of institutions. The purpose of system comparative analysis is to examine under what system the worst policy results are likely to occur and how to avoid the worst policy results, and to explore what kind of system would be the best. If we assume that everyone is altruistic, there will be no bad system, and it will also be unable to explain the causes of the bad policies we can observe in reality.
Based on the assumption of "economic man", Buchanan further proposed that the purpose of fair choice theory is to distinguish personal choice behavior in the economic market from fair choice in the political market. Behavior is incorporated into the same analysis model, the economic man model, thereby correcting the theoretical flaw of Keynesian economics that places political systems outside economic analysis.
Research on "Government Failure" Based on the analysis model of "economic man", Buchanan's government theory studies the limitations of government intervention behavior or the problem of government failure under market economy conditions. This is the core issue of public choice theory. The so-called government failure means that individual needs for public goods cannot be well satisfied in modern parliamentary democracy. Public departments tend to waste and abuse resources when providing public goods, resulting in Public spending is excessive or inefficient, and government activities are not always as "effective" as they should be or as theoretically suggested.
In Buchanan's view: "As an agent of public interests, the government's role is to make up for the shortcomings of the market economy and make the social effects of the decisions made by each economic person greater than those of government intervention." It was higher before. Otherwise, the existence of the government has no economic significance. However, government decisions often fail to meet this goal, and some policies have the opposite effect, that is, the policy effect. weaken rather than improve social welfare." This raises a question: Why does government intervention produce "negative effects" and how to make up for these shortcomings institutionally. Buchanan's answers to these questions constitute the government failure theory of public choice theory.
Buchanan conducted a relatively in-depth analysis of several main manifestations of government failure and their root causes, and put forward specific policy suggestions on how to remedy this "failure".
Inefficiency of government policies. Buchanan believes that the so-called inefficiency of government policies means that the policies implemented cannot ensure the optimal allocation of resources. Generally speaking, the policies of the U.S. government can be divided into three categories in theory: The first category is policies formulated by relevant government departments and finally determined by voters, such as major tax policy adjustments and external policies that have a greater impact on the country’s future. Policy formulation, etc. The second category is plans drawn up by senior leadership of government, such as those drawn up by the federal government or local state governments. The third category is policies formulated and implemented independently by government departments. The rationality of such policies is usually guaranteed by the constitution and other regulations. The responsibility of government departments is to act in accordance with the rules. Here, only the plans formulated by the third category of government policies are used as the object of examination for policy inefficiency.
As far as this type of government policy is concerned, because the policies followed by each government department are usually determined by the leaders of the department based on their own understanding of public interests, on the one hand It is because politicians in these departments have considerable freedom in their actions that they are intentionally or unintentionally influenced by their own "economic man" motives, so that their understanding of public interests is often difficult to match reality; on the other hand, , due to the flexibility of the behavior of politicians in this department and the strong irritation of their self-interested motives, their behavior is not actually inclined to serve the interests of the public to the greatest extent, but based on the information and information they have obtained. Make decisions based on the principle of maximizing personal utility. Buchanan believed that the external reason for this government behavior was the lack of a binding mechanism to restrict the government's behavior. If the constraint mechanism cannot provide a positive pressure to ensure that no one in a privileged position can seek too much personal gain, then no matter how noble the consul is, he cannot guarantee that the interests of the public will not be exploited by others or his successors. damage intentionally or unintentionally. It is in this sense that the public choice theory emphasizes that the power to increase social welfare and ensure individual equality should not be casually handed over to a privileged institution, and then wait devoutly for its gifts. The rational approach is to make these privileged institutions or privileged persons subject to a certain hard constraint mechanism, and let citizens truly, rather than formally, have the final decision-making power of this constraint mechanism.
The inefficiency of government agencies. The government failure theory believes that the reasons for the inefficiency of government agencies are: ① Lack of competitive pressure. In U.S. government agencies, because a considerable number of officials and civil servants are protected by lifetime employment regulations, they do not have enough pressure to work hard to improve their work efficiency; in government agencies that provide public services, this is often the only one. , has no other branches, and does not focus on improving the quality and efficiency of services. ② Government behavior tends to waste resources. Buchanan believes that, first of all, officials spend taxpayers’ money, just like Friedman said, “using other people’s money to do things for other people.” Since there are no property rights constraints, they do not have to worry about costs in all their activities. . Officials act without cost pressure and have greater freedom than private entrepreneurs in the market, allowing government actions regardless of cost to continue to occur. Secondly, government actions have no profit meaning. Officials start from personal gains and losses and try their best to meet the requirements from all aspects in order to pursue votes and political achievements. As a result, public products are oversupplied and social welfare expenses are too high, resulting in a waste of resources. . Also because the power of officials is monopolized, there is the possibility of "infinite overdraft". Once they make a mistake in decision-making, the resulting waste of resources may be far greater than an entrepreneur's investment mistake. ③Incomplete supervision information. Theoretically speaking, politicians and public service agencies cannot do whatever they want, but must submit to political supervision, judicial and audit supervision by citizen representatives to ensure the efficiency of government operations. However, in reality, the effectiveness of these supervisions is likely to be reduced or even lost due to incomplete information. This is because in order to effectively perform their functions, supervisors must know the situation of the supervisees, but it is often the supervisees who provide information to the supervisors. Since government departments have a natural monopoly on their business operations, they can take advantage of their monopoly. Status to block information about resources and costs involved in some public products. Therefore, the effectiveness of supervision conducted by supervisors based on incomplete information provided by the supervisees is greatly reduced.
Government rent-seeking activities. According to Buchanan’s definition: “Rent-seeking is when voters, especially interest groups among them, use various legal or illegal efforts, such as lobbying and bribery, to prompt the government to help them establish a monopoly position in order to obtain high monopoly profits. "For example, the textile industry seeks the protection of the government's tariffs and quotas to keep foreign businessmen out of the country and maintain the monopoly status of the industry. The part where high monopoly profits exceed average profits is called economic rent. It can be seen that the profits obtained by rent-seekers are not the result of production, but a redistribution of existing production results (profits). Therefore, rent-seeking behavior has unproductive characteristics.
At the same time, the premise of rent-seeking is the intervention of government power in market transaction activities. The intervention of government power leads to ineffective allocation of resources and distortion of the distribution pattern, resulting in a large number of social costs. These costs include: resources wasted in rent-seeking activities, economic The resources wasted by political rent-seeking caused by rent-seeking, and the social efficiency lost after successful rent-seeking. The public choice theory believes that under market economy conditions, there are four most common rent-seeking behaviors: first, government pricing; second, government franchise; third, government tariffs and import quotas; fourth, government ordering.
Therefore, Buchanan and other public opinion schools are deeply suspicious of the current Western democratic system and the country and government. As Buchanan said: "Public choice theory replaced the romantic and illusory ideas about government with a set of more pessimistic concepts. Public choice theory opened up a new way of thinking. Here, a romantic, imaginary view of government and the behavior of its rulers has been replaced by a skeptical view of what government can and should do. And this new view is consistent with what we observe. It’s more consistent.” Professor Buchanan’s thoughts are profound and profound, and he has spent his life exploring the political system foundation for the lasting prosperity of the market economy.
In his 1986 speech to receive the Nobel Prize in Economics, Buchanan distinguished between "rule-making" and "policy-making." In other words, we can divide the political process into two stages: the first stage is the design stage of rules or constitutional order; the second stage is the implementation stage of rules. In the language of game theory, the first stage is the design of game rules, and the second stage is the unfolding stage of the game. If the social game is compared to a sports competition, then the first stage is to design the rules of the game; in the second stage, the game is played according to the rules designed in advance.
Just like sports competitions require clear rules of competition (without clear rules, the competition will inevitably be chaotic), effective interaction between people in economic and political life also requires clearly defined rules, and such rules are ***knowledge. Otherwise, one can imagine high transaction costs and inefficiencies in economic politics. For example, in economic life, entrepreneurs may not have long-term plans, so investments that could improve social welfare and make everyone better (Pareto improvement) will not occur. What's worse is that in this kind of society without predefined rules, a kind of gangster logic will appear, that is, rules without rules - "jungle rules". Such a society is terrible.
Perhaps in this sense, contemporary British economist Ken Binmer also said that "a clearly defined social contract is a prerequisite for the emergence of the market."
Therefore, the first stage, that is, the rule design beforehand, is crucial. Buchanan believed that the most just constitutional order would be designed behind a "veil of ignorance." This is an ideal state: in a situation where everyone does not know their type (that is, which interest group they belong to), everyone can achieve the design of the constitutional order by forming a consensus. Although such a situation is difficult to occur in real life, a relatively homogeneous society with a small income gap is still relatively close to this ideal situation. In this case, the rules designed should be the most just.
A more common situation is that in the process of designing a constitutional order, people all know their own type; in a heterogeneous society with differentiated interests, the final constitutional order is a game between different interest groups , the result of compromise. Therefore, excluding revolution, the design of a peaceful constitutional order must satisfy the participation constraints and incentive compatibility constraints of all types of people. The participation constraint is to ensure that each type of people will not be worse off than the original state after accepting the design of the constitutional order (that is, each type of person is willing to participate). The incentive compatibility constraint is to ensure that the behavior of each type of people is as consistent as possible with the social goals when the participation constraints are met. consistent.
We know that in a highly heterogeneous society, these two conditions are difficult to meet. Taking participation constraints as an example, in a society with a large income gap, the design of the constitutional order is likely to harm the interests of vested interests.
In this way, vested interest groups are likely to disapprove of the design of the constitutional order, and their behavior is likely to be inconsistent with social goals, that is, incentive compatibility constraints will not be satisfied.
Therefore, the more severe the income gap and social differentiation in a society, the more difficult it is to design a just constitutional order, because the participation constraints and incentive compatibility constraints are more difficult to satisfy. Therefore, the timing of reform of the constitutional order is very important. Historically, countries with better constitutional order, democracy, and economic development are often those countries with lower income gaps and social differentiation when the constitutional order was established.
There is now a growing recognition of the importance of starting equity for the design and lasting prosperity of constitutional order. When the United States was founded, politicians (especially Jefferson) believed that equality of initial economic endowments and relatively equal property rights were prerequisites for economic prosperity and social progress. This was called "Jeffersonism" and was also the mainstream in the United States. One of political philosophy. Later economic historians believed that this was the fundamental reason for the different development paths of North America and Latin America.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the United States instilled this philosophy into and influenced the governments of East Asian countries at that time. Japan, under the management of the United States (General MacArthur), successfully dismantled the large chaebols and implemented egalitarian land reforms. At the same time, under the influence of the United States, South Korea also successfully implemented the egalitarian land reform of "land to the tiller" around 1950. Politically, the equality of initial endowments makes the problem of interest groups less serious, it is easier to reach social consciousness and social contract (constitutional order), and the government can implement economic policies that are beneficial to the entire society.
From this perspective, China's situation is slightly unfavorable, because China's current income gap is relatively large. However, the design of the constitutional order is indispensable for China's lasting prosperity. Just as sports competitions without well-defined rules will cause chaos, if China wants to maintain sustained prosperity, the design of the constitutional order cannot be avoided. As China's income gap is already very high and interest groups have emerged, the top-level design of the constitutional order has become very important, so as to bypass the interference of interest groups.
On the other hand, the government should narrow the income gap and improve social mobility of different classes through economic reforms and social reforms. This can create a dynamic and equal society and help achieve a fair constitutional order design. Provide institutional guarantee for China's long-term peace and stability and the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. This old man who calls himself a "Tennessee farmer" "works from sunrise to sunset" every day. He speaks slowly and has calm eyes. He likes to use nervous polysemy or metaphors to express his thoughts. The thoughts expressed in this way are There is a strong "inner conflict".
This empirical creed can often be felt in his works - Adam Smith adhered to this creed and was always vigilant not to generalize observations and propositions in specific situations into general propositions or " "Theorem" (any economist who understands the methodology of empiricism is unwilling to use "theorem" to express his or her ideas). Buchanan often used the phrase "not absolutely absolute, nor absolutely relative, but relatively absolute" to describe his own values, political stance, and basic attitude toward the world. , not absolutely relative, but relatively absolute).
As he gets older, the more he realizes that the root cause of the failure of real politics is the lack of principles - politicians and the public policies they formulate are increasingly pursuing short-term interests. This is what Buchanan wrote in 1998. the most urgent task raised by this book. As with his other writings, his theories never strayed far from American reality. Principle, or "generality", became the central idea to which he continued to appeal in his later years, and in this sense he moved towards or into the Austrian School. After the "financial crisis", he called for raising the "currency" issue to a constitutional level for discussion. Keynesian economics dominated, and inflationary policy became the main way to embezzle people's property.
Property rights are at the heart of social justice and at the heart of the U.S. Constitution. From the perspective of Buchanan’s constitutional economics, the highest generality (principle) belongs to the category of constitutionalism.
God is dead. In all countries, without exception, politicians (who use politics as a means to pursue short-term interests) gradually drive out politicians (who use politics as a stage for realizing higher ideals). Monetary policy, like foreign policy, education, population and social welfare, and public policy, is no longer principled. As a result, the policy of “monetary denationalization” advocated by Hayek is becoming a constitutional issue in the market economy (see Edward Peter Stringham and Todd J. Zywicki, 2011, “Hayekian anarchism”, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization". Instead of allowing these politicians to issue banknotes indiscriminately like the "land-selling finance" of local governments in China, why not give the right to mint money to private banks with free competition? The value of banknotes depends on whether the issuer cherishes himself? Who cherishes reputation more, politicians or banks?
Buchanan first criticized Hayek for "blind faith in tradition" in the footnote of the last chapter of "The Limits of Freedom" published in 1975. A similar criticism (of course kind) was made at a small seminar discussing the first draft of Hayek's 1988 The Fatal Conceit. Buchanan's position was, he said, "closer to Rawls's". In fact, the main purpose of a newly published paper is to demonstrate that Habermas’s “social interaction” theory published in the 1980s is consistent with Frank Knight (Buchanan’s teacher and one of Buchanan’s two “heroes”). ) published in the 1940s, there are similarities that cannot be ignored (Dalibor Rohá?, 2012, "Knight, Habermas, and Rawls on freedom, personhood and constitutional choice", The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought , vol. 19, issue 1, pp. 23 - 43).
Economists bear an unshirkable responsibility for the general failure of realpolitik and public policy. 1986 "Liberty, Market and State"): "Economics, as it was in the 1980s, is a 'science' that has forgotten its ultimate purpose or meaning... In a very real sense, economics in the 1980s Scientists are illiterate in the fundamentals of their fields... they appear to be a castrated bunch of ideologically trained and highly resourceful people who are being churned out in our graduate schools. Experts, who are trained to be craftsmen who are fortunate enough to ignore the highest purposes of their academic endeavors, never feel morally obligated to convince and teach their students how a group of free individuals can be organized effectively. The idea of ??a social process that makes efficient use of natural resources and does not lead to major conflicts that lead to social disintegration. "I particularly liked this passage from Buchanan, so I quoted it in full in my faxed questionnaire. Key words in the last sentence of this passage." "Social process", which is the keyword of Knight's 1942 article in the journal Ethics that elaborated on "free discussion" (Frank Knight, 1942, "science, philosophy, and social procedure", Ethics , vol. 52, no. 3, pp. 253 - 274).
Seemingly aware of Buchanan’s imminent departure, JEBO (Economic Behavior and Organization) published a special issue on “Buchanan” in July 2011.
Another Nobel Prize-winning economist, Amartya Sen, published a deeply affectionate article in this issue, "on James Buchanan". Uniquely, the core of Sen's article is just one sentence: Buchanan has made many contributions, and choosing the most important one, Sen thinks it is: "The cultivation of the taste for public reasoning in an open-minded way, which James Buchanan has done so much to advance, is one of the features of his greatness for which economists and other social scientists—and indeed the world at large—have much reason to be grateful.” (Economists and other social scientists - indeed the world - have every reason to be grateful to Buchanan for this great trait). In this article, Sen declared that in pursuing this line of thinking, Buchanan was "a major hero of mine". Sen's assessment seems to me to be very pertinent. In the public sector, the public needs to speak, but the public tends to be polarized. Buchanan has long worked hard to cultivate a more complex taste for discourse that can transcend conflict, especially in the field of public affairs. Therefore, Buchanan believes that the primary function of economists is to "educate the people." Because, this is also Knight's opinion: the public generally has difficulty accepting even the most superficial economic principles and the conclusions drawn from their application.
Looking at Buchanan’s lifelong thinking and expressions, what struck me most deeply, as mentioned above, was the “politics based on principles” that he regarded as the most urgent task in his later years. Although, in the "era of law-ending", it is difficult for principled politics to be eliminated by unprincipled politics.
Buchanan’s thoughts in his later years are of great significance to China’s current political reforms and economic policies. He lamented: "Politics has exceeded its limits everywhere, people have realized its failures, and the public choice theory only provides an explanation for their consciousness - understanding what they realize What's Happening." China readers need to understand why politics has failed everywhere in order to find a politics for China that is more likely to not fail.
The first thing that needs to be clarified is the meaning of "political failure." Buchanan, closer to Rawls’s “contractualist” position. The most brilliant defender of this position was the gifted Harvard professor Scanlon (see Thomas M. Scanlon, 1982, "contractarianism and utilitarianism", in Amartya Sen and Bernard Williams, eds., Utilitarianism and Beyond). Any political action, no matter how great a success it may be in the eyes of those who preside over it, will fail as long as it violates the contract. The constitution is a set of political contracts, and both Rawls and his critics would agree that the basic function of the constitution (in the sense of “basic social structures” and “major institutions” as interpreted by Rawls) is to uphold social justice. A contractualist interpretation of this function of the Constitution is, in Scanlon’s plain language, the basic principle of “what we owe to each other”—Scanlon defined this function in 1998 The phrase was the title of his famous book Our Duty to Each Other (Harvard University Press, 1998). The success or failure of politics then depends on whether it delivers on its original promises.
A political party's fulfillment of its commitments to the people (political contract) is the responsibility of a political party that has gained power based on people's support to the people. In a system of multi-party competition or multi-factional competition within the party, the ruler should transcend party interests (his private "taste") and pursue "the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people" (Jeremy Bentham). The so-called "party establishment" "For the public" (his public *** "value"). This is the basic assumption about voter behavior in Chapter 2, Section 3 "Ordering of Social States" in Arrow's "Social Choice and Individual Values" (Kenneth Arrow, 1951, Social Choice and Individual Values, second edition 1963), which I call This is the assumption of "civic consciousness" - every citizen's "value" in the public domain should not be dominated by his "taste" in the private domain. Otherwise, there is no "politics" in Arendt's sense (Hannah Arendt, 1958, The Human Condition, Chapters 1 and 2). Arrow said (Chapter 1, Section 1 of the work cited above) that his teacher Knight pointed out many times that in a democratic political system similar to a free market system, voters will only base their opinions on their opinions just like they do in a market economy. "Partial knowledge" votes, so "public choice" always tends to strengthen "special interests" and thus leads to greater inequality (the rich tend to get greater representation). In any case, Arrow stated that his thesis "studies only the form of democracy and not its content." Knight was Buchanan's teacher and Arrow's teacher. Buchanan, more like this teacher than Arrow, was always exploring the substance (content) of democracy.
Principles are the life of politicians. Unlike politicians, politicians have beliefs. A principle is a political expression of belief, it cannot be traded, so it is not an interest. Politics has generally failed because politicians have disappeared everywhere. Knight's prophecy, like his other prophecies, came true. The rapid increase in inequality in the past decade in a "power law" manner and the "Occupy Wall Street" movement can be said to be the latest verification of Knight's prediction. An earlier verification occurred in China. Zhang Junmai (known as the "Father of the Constitution of the Republic of China") expressed similar opinions to the above when he published "Ten Lectures on the Constitution of the Republic of China" in 1948 to summarize the lessons of political failure since 1911.
On January 9, 2013, Buchanan passed away at the age of 93. His grandfather once served as the governor of Tennessee, but the governor's grandson developed the habit of getting up early to work in farming because of his poor family. Politics never promises to bring wealth to the individuals who hold power. George Mason University's "Buchanan House" is the office of the Public Choice Research Center. The cabin was surrounded by woods and a large meadow. It looked like a farmhouse, especially the forest road, which was just wide enough for a car to pass by and winding to an old pine in front of the door. A pair of old rocking chairs sat on the porch opposite the old pine, and a pot of domestic wildflowers hung in the window. This style is incompatible with the majestic buildings of George Mason University, but it fully reflects Buchanan's "low-key life."