Liberty Fund Books

Description

During the past half-century Gordon Tullock has continually advanced the frontiers of political economy, most particularly with respect to the workings of representative democracies and autocracies. As his reputation grows, Liberty Fund announces a ten-volume collection, The Selected Works of Gordon Tullock. This series, edited and arranged thematically by George Mason University’s Duncan Black Professor of Economics Charles K. Rowley, brings together Tullock’s most significant contributions to economics, political science, public choice, sociology, law and economics, and bioeconomics.

Tullock followed a unique path in his academic career. His exposure to formal economic training was limited to one course taught by Henry Simons as part of the law curriculum at the University of Chicago. Although Tullock does not hold a degree in economics, he is one of the most respected and widely cited economists of the modern age. His influence on modern political economy is simply immense. As Rowley points out in his introduction to the first volume of this series, “Gordon Tullock is an economist by nature rather than by training.” Assuredly, his “outsider” perspective and his intellectual brilliance cultivate an uncommon ability to think “outside the box” and to explain scientifically phenomena that are often intuitively obvious but not readily demonstrated.

Tullock and his 1962 coauthor, Nobel laureate James M. Buchanan, are widely recognized as cofounders of public choice, a field that systematically applies the rational choice approach of economics to the analysis of political markets. Public choice analysts evaluate the impact on political outcomes exercised by voters, special interests, bureaucrats, legislators, and presidents on the assumption that each such actor pursues his own self-interest. In so doing, public choice demonstrates that the “invisible hand,” identified by Adam Smith as associating self-interest in the private marketplace with the wealth of a nation, does not necessarily hold in political markets, where the “visible boot” of government, unless carefully checked, may result in economic ruin.

Tullock has made pathbreaking contributions to constitutional political economy, the vote motive, rent-seeking theory, bureaucracy, law and economics, and bioeconomics. He has expanded the frontiers of political economy, widely defined.

Scholars will undoubtedly find the extensive breadth and depth of Tullock’s writings enriching. The general reader, as well as the student of politics, and all who love economic liberty, will find Tullock’s prose lucid, readable, and sprinkled with wit. His forensic argument is penetrating, compelling, clear, and unambiguous. His brilliant mind is surprisingly accessible to us all.

Gordon Tullock is among a small group of living legends in the field of political economics. The Selected Works of Gordon Tullock provides an entree to the mind of an original thinker. Professor Rowley provides deliberately sparse contextual introduction to each volume, opting to allow the very able and eloquent Tullock to speak for himself.

Charles K. Rowley is Duncan Black Professor of Economics and a Senior Fellow of the James M. Buchanan Center for Political Economy at George Mason University. He is also General Director of the Locke Institute.

The entire series includes:

Volume 1: Virginia Political Economy
Volume 2: The Calculus of Consent
Volume 3: The Organization of Inquiry (November 2004)
Volume 4: The Economics of Politics (February 2005)
Volume 5: The Rent-Seeking Society (March 2005)
Volume 6: Bureaucracy (June 2005)
Volume 7: The Economics and Politics of Wealth Redistribution (July 2005)
Volume 8: The Social Dilemma: Of Autocracy, Revolution, Coup d'Etat, and War (December 2005)
Volume 9: Law and Economics (December 2005)
Volume 10: Economics without Frontiers (January 2006)

Table of Contents

Virginia Political Economy

Introduction, by Charles K. Rowley xi
Gordon Tullock, by Mark Blaug xxv
Gordon Tullock: Distinguished Fellow, 1998 xxvii

1. GENESIS
Economic Imperialism 3
Public Choice 16
Public Choice—What I Hope for the Next Twenty-Five Years 27
Casual Recollections of an Editor 36

2. PROBLEMS OF MAJORITY VOTING
Problems of Majority Voting 51
The Irrationality of Intransitivity 62
Entry Barriers in Politics 69
Federalism: Problems of Scale 78
The General Irrelevance of the General Impossibility Theorem 90
Why So Much Stability 105
Is There a Paradox of Voting? 124

3. THE DEMAND-REVEALING PROCESS
A New and Superior Process for Making Social Choices
(T. Nicolaus Tideman and Gordon Tullock) 133
The Demand-Revealing Process as a Welfare Indicator 149
Demand-Revealing Process, Coalitions, and Public Goods 164

4. RENT SEEKING
The Welfare Costs of Tariffs, Monopolies, and Theft 169
The Cost of Transfers 180
More on the Welfare Costs of Transfers 194
Competing for Aid 199
The Transitional Gains Trap 212
Efficient Rent Seeking 222
Rent Seeking 237

5. REDISTRIBUTIVE POLITICS
Inheritance Justified 247
Inheritance Rejustified 258
The Charity of the Uncharitable 262
The Rhetoric and Reality of Redistribution 276

6. BUREAUCRACY
Dynamic Hypothesis on Bureaucracy 297
The Expanding Public Sector: Wagner Squared
(James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock) 302

7. THE SOCIAL DILEMMA
The Edge of the Jungle 309
Corruption and Anarchy 323
The Paradox of Revolution 329
Rationality and Revolution 341

8. THE PROBLEM OF SOCIAL COST
Public and Private Interaction under Reciprocal Externality
(James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock) 349
Social Cost and Government Action 378
Public Decisions as Public Goods 388
Information without Profit 394
Polluters’ Profits and Political Response: Direct Controls versus Taxes
(James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock) 412
Polluters’ Profits and Political Response: Direct Controls versus Taxes:
Reply (James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock) 425
Hawks, Doves, and Free Riders 427

9. LAW AND ECONOMICS
An Economic Approach to Crime 441
The Costs of a Legal System (Warren F. Schwartz and Gordon Tullock) 456
On the Efficient Organization of Trials 465
On the Efficient Organization of Trials: Reply to McChesney,
and Ordover and Weitzman 480
Judicial Errors and a Proposal for Reform
(I. J. Good and Gordon Tullock) 484
Court Errors 495
Legal Heresy: Presidential Address to the Western Economic Association
Annual Meeting—1995 509
Juries 521

10. BIOECONOMICS
The Coal Tit as a Careful Shopper 537
Biological Externalities 541
Biological Applications of Economics 553
The Economics of (Very) Primitive Societies 558

11. IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST
A (Partial) Rehabilitation of the Public Interest Theory 577
How to Do Well While Doing Good! 589

APPENDIXES
Gordon Tullock: Biographical Note 605
Contents of the Selected Works of Gordon Tullock 611

Index 623


The Calculus of Consent

Introduction, by Charles K. Rowley ix

James McGill Buchanan, by Gordon Tullock xix


Preface xxi

PART I. THE CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

1. Introduction 3

2. The Individualistic Postulate 11

3. Politics and the Economic Nexus 16

4. Individual Rationality in Social Choice 30


PART II. THE REALM OF SOCIAL CHOICE

5. The Organization of Human Activity 41

6. A Generalized Economic Theory of Constitutions 60

7. The Rule of Unanimity 81

8. The Costs of Decision-Making 93


PART III. ANALYSES OF DECISION-MAKING RULES

9. The Structure of the Models 115

10. Simple Majority Voting 127

11. Simple Majority Voting and the Theory of Games 143

12. Majority Rule, Game Theory, and Pareto Optimality 165

13. Pareto Optimality, External Costs, and Income Redistribution 182

14. The Range and Extent of Collective Action 192

15. Qualified Majority Voting Rules, Representation, and

the Interdependence of Constitutional Variables 202

16. The Bicameral Legislature 222

17. The Orthodox Model of Majority Rule 237


PART IV. THE ECONOMICS AND THE ETHICS OF DEMOCRACY

18. Democratic Ethics and Economic Efficiency 253

19. Pressure Groups, Special Interests, and the Constitution 269

20. The Politics of the Good Society 281


APPENDIX 1

Marginal Notes on Reading Political Philosophy,

by James M. Buchanan 291


APPENDIX 2

Theoretical Forerunners, by Gordon Tullock 310


Index 333


The Organization of Inquiry

Introduction, by Charles K. Rowley ix

Preface and Acknowledgments xix

I The Social Organization of Science 3

II Why Inquire? 10

III The Subject and Methods of Inquiry 33

IV Data Collection 55

V The Problem of Induction 88

VI Verification and Dissemination 107

VII The Backwardness of the Social Sciences 135

VIII Practical Suggestions 159

Index 185


The Economics of Politics

Introduction, by Charles K. Rowley ix


1. THE NATURE OF PUBLIC CHOICE

An Economic Analysis of Political Choice 3

Origins of Public Choice 11

People Are People: The Elements of Public Choice 32


2. WHAT SHOULD GOVERNMENT DO?

Mosquito Abatement 49

Property, Contract, and the State 68

Bargaining 86

Externalities and All That 97

The Costs of Government 114

Remedies 137

The Social Costs of Reducing Social Cost 156


3. THE VOTE MOTIVE: AN ESSAY IN THE ECONOMICS OF POLITICS 167


4. RATIONAL IGNORANCE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS

Political Ignorance 225

The Politics of Persuasion 241

The Economics of Lying 259

Some Further Thoughts on Voting 270


5. VOTING PARADOXES

A Measure of the Importance of Cyclical Majorities

(Colin D. Campbell and Gordon Tullock )275

The Paradox of Voting —A Possible Method of Calculation 280

Computer Simulation of a Small Voting System (Gordon Tullock

and Colin D. Campbell )283

The Paradox of Not Voting for Oneself 293

Avoiding the Voter ’s Paradox Democratically: Comment 295

An Approach to Empirical Measures of Voting Paradoxes

(John L. Dobra and Gordon Tullock )297


6. THE MEDIAN VOTER THEOREM

Duncan Black: The Founding Father, 23 May 1908 –14 January 1991 301

Hotelling and Downs in Two Dimensions 305


7. VOTE TRADING AND LOGROLLING AS MECHANISMS

OF POLITICAL EXCHANGE

A Simple Algebraic Logrolling Model 319

More Complicated Log-rolling 331

Efficiency in Log-rolling 346


8. MORE ON DEMAND REVEALING

Some Limitations of Demand-Revealing Processes: Comment

(T. Nicolaus Tideman and Gordon Tullock )361

Coalitions under Demand Revealing

(T. Nicolaus Tideman and Gordon Tullock )366

More Thought about Demand Revealing 373


9. VOTING METHODS AND POLITICAL MARKET BEHAVIOR

Proportional Representation 381

Democracy as It Really Is 395

A Bouquet of Governments 401

Thoughts about Representative Government 413

Voting, Different Methods and General Considerations 427

A Bouquet of Voting Methods 437


INDEX 449


The Rent Seeking Society

Introduction, by Charles K. Rowley


1. RENT SEEKING: AN OVERVIEW

Rent Seeking: The Problem of Definition 3

Rent Seeking 11


2. MORE ON EFFICIENT RENT SEEKING

Efficient Rent-Seeking Revisited 85

Back to the Bog 88

Another Part of the Swamp 93

Still Somewhat Muddy: A Comment 95


3.THE ENVIRONMENTS OF RENT SEEKING

Rent Seeking as a Negative-Sum Game 103

Industrial Organization and Rent Seeking in Dictatorships 122

Transitional Gains and Transfers 136

Rents and Rent-Seeking 148

Why Did the Industrial Revolution Occur in England? 160

Rent Seeking and Tax Reform 171

Rent-Seeking and the Law 184

Excise Taxation in the Rent-Seeking Society 196


4. THE COST OF RENT SEEKING

The Costs of Rent Seeking: A Metaphysical Problem 203

Rents, Ignorance, and Ideology 214

Efficient Rent Seeking, Diseconomies of Scale, Public Goods,

and Morality 231

Are Rents Fully Dissipated? 236

Where Is the Rectangle? 241

Which Rectangle? 253


5. EXCHANGES AND CONTRACTS 261


6. FUTURE DIRECTIONS FOR RENT-SEEKING RESEARCH 295


INDEX 313

Bureaucracy

Introduction, by Charles K. Rowley ix

THE POLITICS OF BUREAUCRACY
Foreword, by James M. Buchanan 3

PART 1. INTRODCUTION
1. What This Book Is About 13
2. Preliminaries 19

PART 2. THE POLITICIAN’S WORLD
3. The General Atmosphere 39
4. Spectators and Allies 51
5. The Politician’s World—The Sovereigns 57
6. The Single Sovereign Situation 70
7. The Group Sovereign 89
8. Multiple Sovereigns 109
9. Peers, Courtiers, and Barons 115
10. The Followers 125

PART 3. LOOKING DOWNWARD
11. Subordinates and Inferiors 131
12. Know Thyself 140
13. Parkinson’s Law 145
14. Whispering Down the Lane 148
15. A Mental Experiment 153
16. The Experiment Continued 160
17. Limitations on Organizational Tasks 168
18. Relaxing Requirements 176
19. The Problem of Control 189
20. Enforcement 197
21. Judgment by Results 205
22. Labor Saving Devices—Cost Accounting 210
23. Labor Saving Devices—Miscellaneous 217
24. External Checks 224

PART 4. CONCLUSION
25. What to Do? What to Do? 235

ECONOMIC HIERARCHIES, ORGANIZATION
AND THE STRUCTURE OF PRODUCTION
Preface 241
1. Introduction 243
2. Why Hierarchical Organizations? Why Not? 248
3. Parallel Problems 263
4. In the Belly of the Beast 279
5. Life in the Interior 295
6. Structural Reform 313
7. Termites 327
8. A General Picture 340
9. Random Allocation 353
10. Rent Seeking and the Importance of Disorganization 375
11. Restricted Scope 387
12. Incentives 400
13. Summing Up 416

Index 423

The Economics and Politics of Wealth Redistribution

Introduction, by Charles K. Rowley ix

1. WHY REDISTRIBUTE WEATLH?
Income Redistribution 3
Helping the Poor 11
Reasons for Redistribution [1983] 23
Reasons for Redistribution [1986] 42
Objectives of Income Redistribution 71

2. PRIVATE AND SEMIPRIVATE REDISTRIBUTION
MECHANISMS
Charitable Gifts 89
Local Redistribution 117
Aid in Kind 133
Demand Revealing, Transfers, and Rent Seeking 142
Epilogue—The Grating People 149

3. REDISTRIBUTIVE POLITICS
The Machiavellians and the Well-Intentioned 155
Helping the Poor vs. Helping the Well-Organized 171
Horizontal Transfers 179
Information and Logrolling 198
The Mixed Case 217
General Welfare or Welfare for the Poor Only 245

4. THE EXPANDING FRONTIERS OF WEALTH REDISTRIBUTION
Old Age Pensions 263
Risk, Charity, and Miscellaneous Aspects of Social Security 278
Education and Medicine 294
Administrative Transfers 319
Giving Life 339

5. WHAT TO DO—WHAT TO DO 355

Index 369

The Social Dilemma: Of Autocracy, Revolution, Coup d'Etat, and War

Introduction, by Charles K. Rowley ix

1. THE ROOTS OF THE SOCIAL DILEMMA
The Roots of Conflict 3
The Cooperative State 13
The Exploitative State 22

2. THE GOALS AND ORGANIZATIONAL FORMS OF AUTOCRACIES
Introduction to Gordon Tullock's Autocracy 33
The Uses of Dictatorship 48
Becoming a Dictator 63
The Problem of Succession 82
Democracy and Despotism 107
Monarchies, Hereditary and Nonhereditary 141

3. REVOLUTION AND ITS SUPPRESSION
Revolution and Welfare Economics 163
The Paradox of Revolution 174
The Economics of Repression 186
"Popular" Risings 201
Legitimacy and Ethics 225

4. THE COUP D'ETAT AND ITS SUPPRESSION
Coup d'Etat: Structural Factors 261
The Theory of the Coup 273
Coups and Their Prevention 292

5. THE ECONOMICS OF WAR
International Conflict: Two Parties 311
Agreement and Cheating 334
Three or More Countries and the Balance of Power 354
Epilogue to The Social Dilemma:
The Economics of War and Revolution 368

Index 371

Law and Economics

Introduction, by Charles K. Rowley ix

THE LOGIC OF THE LAW
Preface 3

PART 1. FUNDAMENTAL ASSUMPTIONS
1. Law without Ethics 9
2. Fundamental Assumptions 15

PART 2. CIVIL LAW
3. Contracts, Substantive Law 37
4. Enforcement of Contracts 55
5. Anglo-Saxon Encumbrances 73
6. Accidents 98
7. Status 124

PART 3. CRIMINAL LAW
8. Motor Vehicle Offenses and Tax Evasion 137
9. Jurisprudence: Some Myths Dispelled 152
10. Jurisprudence: Some General Problems 173
11. Theft and Robbery 189
12. Fraud and Information Control 204
13. Crimes against the Person 215

PART 4. ETHICS
14. Ethics 225

Appendix A: Exceptions to the Social Contract 229
Appendix B: General Table of Symbols 235

THE ECONOMIICS OF LEGAL PROCEEDINGS
The “Dead Hand” of Monopoly (James M. Buchanan and Gordon
Tullock) 241
Does Punishment Deter Crime? 252
Two Kinds of Legal Efficiency 263
Optimal Procedure 274
Technology: The Anglo-Saxons versus the Rest of the World 291
Various Ways of Dealing with the Cost of Litigation 309
The Motivation of Judges 324
Defending the Napoleonic Code over the Common Law 339
Negligence Again 364
Welfare and the Law 380

THE CASE AGAINST THE COMMON LAW
1. Introduction 399
2. The Ideal of the Common Law 403
3. The Common Law in Public Choice Perspective 411
4. All the World’s a Stage 413
5. The Play’s the Thing 431
6. The Tragedie of the Common Law System in the United States 441
7. Why I Prefer Napoléon 449

Index 457

Economics without Frontiers

Introduction, by Charles K. Rowley ix

1. THE ECONOMIC APPROACH TO HUMAN BEHAVIOR
(Richard B. McKenzie and Gordon Tullock) 3

2. THE NEW WORLD OF ECONOMICS
Marriage, Divorce, and the Family
(Richard B. McKenzie and Gordon Tullock) 25
Child Production (Richard B. McKenzie and Gordon Tullock) 39
The Economic Aspects of Crime
(Richard B. McKenzie and Gordon Tullock) 56
The Economic versus the Sociological Views of Crime
(Richard B. McKenzie and Gordon Tullock) 73
Why Government (Gordon Tullock and Richard B. McKenzie) 85
Rationality in Human and Nonhuman Societies
(Gordon Tullock and Richard B. McKenzie) 95
Universities Should Discriminate against Assistant Professors 111

3. BIOECONOMICS
Sociobiology (Gordon Tullock and Richard B. McKenzie) 115
Economics and Sociobiology: A Comment 133
Sociobiology and Economics 139
Territorial Boundaries: An Economic View 155
Evolution and Human Behavior 159
The Economics of Nonhuman Societies 171
1. Introduction 173
2. The Genetics of Society 181
3. Coordination and the Prisoner’s Dilemma 197
4. Consider the Ant 206
5. Termites and Bees 225
6. Mole Rats, Sponges, and Slime Molds 236
7. A Theory of Cooperation 250
8. A Society of Cells 264

4. PUBLIC FINANCE
Science Fiction and the Debt 271
Subsidized Housing in a Competitive Market: Comment 275
Optimal Poll Taxes 277
Optimal Poll Taxes: Further Aspects 285
Bismarckism 289

5. MONETARY ECONOMICS
Hyperinflation in China, 1937– 49
(Colin D. Campbell and Gordon C. Tullock) 307
Paper Money—A Cycle in Cathay 321
Some Little-Understood Aspects of Korea’s Monetary and Fiscal Systems
(Colin D. Campbell and Gordon Tullock) 343
Competing Monies 359
Competing Monies: A Reply 367
When Is Inflation Not Inflation? 373

6. SIZE AND GROWTH OF GOVERNMENT
An Empirical Analysis of Cross-National Economic Growth, 1951– 80
(Kevin B. Grier and Gordon Tullock) 379
Provision of Public Goods through Privatization 399

7. THE THEORY OF GAMES
An Economic Theory of Military Tactics: Methodological Individualism
at War (Geoffrey Brennan and Gordon Tullock) 405
Jackson and the Prisoner’s Dilemma 425
Adam Smith and the Prisoners’ Dilemma 429
Games and Preference 438

Index 447
Series Indexes
Titles of Works Included in the Series 461
Cumulative Index 467