ŏ Ŕ ō Ŝ Š ő Ş șȗCivic Religion Reasserted*
In recent decades the public-choice school has been applying economic
analysis to political institutions and activities. People are fundamentally
the same in government as in private life. In trying to achieve their pur-
poses (which need not be narrowly egoistic ones), individuals respond to
opportunities and incentives. Ļe specifics of these are different in politics
than in the marketplace of business.
One implication is that the ordinary voter seldom finds it worth while
to become well informed on a wide range of political issues. Almost never
would his trouble change an election result or the policies adopted. He
has better uses for his time and energy. Ļe private market gives him a
better chance than politics does to satisfy his own preferences, even quirky
ones. Similarly, he has only slight opportunities and incentives to monitor
the performance of his supposed servants in government. Special interest
groups have better opportunities to steer government policies in their own
favorite directions.
For these and other reasons—only some of them noticed in the book
under review—the democratic political process responds inaccurately to
what the citizens would desire if they were well informed. Modern demo-
cratic government has a bias toward counterproductive hyperactivity.
An extensive literature making such points meets sweeping rejection
by a Berkeley Ph.D. graduate, former assistant professor of political sci-
ence at the University of Chicago, and now professor of economics at the
University of California at Santa Cruz. In an earlier article now expanded
into the book, Donald Wittman claimed that “democratic markets work
as well as economic markets” (ȀȈȇȈ, p.ȀȂȈȄ). Ļe book (ȀȈȈȄ, p.Ȁ) weakens
this claim into “both political and economic markets work well.” In article
and book alike, Wittman claims that the democratic process is “efficient,”
*FromLibertyȀǿ( JanuaryȀȈȈȆ):ȄȆ–ȅǿ, there titled “We Many, We Happy Many.”
Review of Donald A. Wittman,Ļe Myth of Democratic Failure: Why Political Institutions
Are Efficient(Chicago: University of Chicago Press,ȀȈȈȄ).
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