Calculus of Consent: The Calculus of Consent v. 2 (Tullock, Gordon. Selections. V. 2.)

This model in itself is robust, however in application, it is clear that Buchanan and Tullock would prefer to error on the side of minimizing what they call threats to 'liberty and property'. Therefore, they forward a strongly conservative agenda in which a small propertied minority can, in this axiom legitimately, block the collectivization of activities which a majority of the population supports.


A genuine, celebrated classic   February 13, 1999
4 out of 5 found this review helpful

Some reviewers comment that this book has "a conservative bias." Nothing could be further from the truth. This book is written in the great classical-liberal tradition that motivated the American revolution and the drafting of America's 1787 Constitution. Buchanan and Tullock saw themselves as putting into modern economic language the insights and wisdom of James Madison and Co. The book does indeed counsel skepticism of big government, and it is no great fan of unlimited democracy. But the authors come to this position because they understand that even democratic governments can be tyrannical and that a depoliticized society -- governed largely by private property rights -- promises peace, prosperity, and cultural flourishing. Few books on economics are as original and insightful as is The Calculus of Consent -- and it remains as fresh in 1999 as it was when first published in 1962.


Foundation of conservative ideology,but is that a good thing   November 3, 1998
4 out of 11 found this review helpful

The authors claim to be 'scientific', 'rational', 'empirical', 'economic' in their assessment of the public decision making process and the role of public choice, but there are clearly several normative value judgements embedded in their framework. In discussing their choice of optimal rules, the authors state that an assumption of their model is that all votes are considered equal, and that if this assumption is not valid then there model will fail to function properly. They continue in stating that this is not a very large constraint as one vote is only one vote whether or not the individual uses it or cares about it or not. However, a hundred pages later, the author's apply their model to representational democracy, an area where a very compelling argument can be made that all votes are not equal, yet they fail to address this fairly basic flaw in their thinking, or how it effects the functioning of their model. The authors also repeatedly give the same importance to the protection of property that they do to the protection of liberty, another normative assumption that influences their model, as they seem to egg the reader on in thinking that greater decision costs can be tolerated if the stake is Liberty and property. This piggy-backing of the property rights of the wealthy on the civil rights of the working class seems pretty disingenuous as the end result of this piggy-backing is that the workers get screwed while the rich are free to get richer. However the weakest aspect of the text from an 'empirical' perspective, is that the authors leave their definition of costs largely undefined. In other words they can, and indeed do, shift the 'contract locus' at will to ensure that a conservative ideology will prevail no matter the given situation. That the authors oppose the enlargement of government is clear, as is the fact they justify this position by advocating what they call personal liberty, which is in reality the protection of the private property of the few. Those may or may not be convincing arguments depending on the readers own perspective (and pocketbook). However, the authors do not claim to be offering a perspective. They are offering a 'calculus of consent', a scientific method by which to divine our political choices free of the nasty constraints of opinion and values. Put it this way, as passionate intellectual forefathers of slippery right wing rationalizations for greed and inequality, these authors score major points, as dispassionate scientists merely describing the way 'things are' they are merely majorly hilarious.