Mises, Bastiat, public opinion, and public choice

Caplan, Bryan and Stringham, Edward (2005): Mises, Bastiat, public opinion, and public choice. Published in: Review of Political Economy , Vol. 17, No. 1 (January 2005): pp. 79-105.

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.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Templeton Culture of Enterprise Award; economic literacy; rational ignorance; rational irrationality; biased beliefs
• Subjects: H - Public Economics > H1 - Structure and Scope of Government > H10 - General; D - Microeconomics > D7 - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making > D72 - Political Processes: Rent-Seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior; B - History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches > B5 - Current Heterodox Approaches > B53 - Austrian; P - Economic Systems > P1 - Capitalist Systems > P16 - Political Economy

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