Download This PaperMises, Bastiat, Public Opinion, and Public Choice: What's Wrong with Democracy?
Review of Political Economy, Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 79-105, January 2005
45 Pages Posted: 10 Sep 2010 Last revised: 15 Dec 2010
Date Written: 2005
Abstract
The political economy of Ludwig von Mises and Frederic Bastiat has been largely ignored even by their admirers. We argue that Mises' and Bastiat's views in this area were both original and insightful. While traditional public choice generally maintains that democracy fails because voters' views are rational but ignored, the Mises-Bastiat view is that democracy fails because voters' views are irrational but heeded. Mises and Bastiat anticipate many of the most effective criticisms of tra4itional public choice to emerge during the last decade and point to many avenues for future research.
JEL Classification: D72, H10, P16, B53
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
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