‘Econocracy’ and the Policy Process

This book is concerned with the methods of making public decisions or policies. It starts with a critique of the use and effects of certain economic techniques which are now widely recommended, and often used as aids for public decisions. It is the claim of their practitioners that, whatever their limitations, these techniques at least help to make public decisions more rational; that they are a contribution towards, or even the model for, the ideal of ‘rational decision-making’. I shall consider this claim critically, and suggest that in many cases the use of these techniques is productive not of greater rationality, but of irrationality and confusion.