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01-09-2012

The consents of The Calculus

Author: Hartmut Kliemt

Published in: Public Choice | Issue 3-4/2012

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The traditional interpretation of The Calculus of Consent ¹ emphasizes the role of original consent in collective decision-making procedures. Rule choices are justified by consent and outcomes of within-rule choices by the rules leading to them. Independently of whether or not within-rule choices and outcomes of a procedure are themselves agreed to they inherit the legitimacy of the original consensual rule choice. …

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Buchanan and Tullock (1962) is abridged as Calculus throughout.

Buchanan relates utility maximization to Arrow’s, Black’s, Downs’s and Schumpeter’s accounts of political choice, while he associates the idea of “politics as exchange” chiefly to Wicksell in Buchanan (1987).

Binmore (2009) discusses the small versus the large world problem very well.

Giving up the unanimity criterion for in-period decisions can itself be seen as a higher order Pareto-superior move.

It is unclear why the political economist at time t _n should rely on some former preference profile (P ₁(t ₀),P ₂(t ₀),…,P _k(t ₀)), rather than on the profile P(t _n) at t _n>t ₀. Of course, to the extent that individuals have committed themselves to accept the outcomes of certain procedures at a former time, they may be treated as normatively bound. Yet the theorist must make a decision about which preferences he will apply.

“The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done but cannot do at all, or cannot do so well for themselves in their separate and individual capacities. In all that people can do individually as well for themselves, government ought not to interfere.” Abraham Lincoln in an 1854 speech.

It seems that the ratificatory role of the protective state is the best—perhaps the only—way to make good sense of Hayek’s distinction between the rule of law and legislation.

The sphere that is beyond substantive rather than merely ratificatory in-period “politics” may be defined politically when the constitution is set up.

Applied to the productive state the unanimity criterion of the Calculus is right on the mark. Having a veto presupposes that everything is forbidden unless accepted by everybody; see also Kliemt (1994).

As in Buchanan (1975), of course.

The Buchanan and Congleton (1998) way out via strengthening the generality criterion is inspiring yet leaves too many interpretative loopholes. Requiring more inclusive voting thresholds and extending compensation payments to those who end up in political minorities in the spirit of Wicksell seems more promising.

Preferring the Pareto criterion to any notion of a “maximum sum” of utility in evaluating policies, and favoring, other things being equal, “unanimity” to anything less than unanimity then seems natural.

Binmore, K. G. (2009). Rational decisions. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Buchanan, J. M. (1975). The limits of liberty. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Buchanan, J. M. (1987). Justification of the compound republic. The calculus in retrospect. The Cato Journal, 7, 305–312.

Buchanan, J. M., & Congleton, R. (1998). Politics by principle, not interest: towards nondiscriminatory democracy. New York: Cambridge University Press. CrossRef

Buchanan, J. M., & Tullock, G. (1962). The calculus of consent. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Kliemt, H. (1994). The calculus of consent after thirty years. Public Choice, 79, 341–353. CrossRef

Ostrom, V. ([1971] 1987). The political theory of a compound republic. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press.

Rawls, J. (1971). A theory of justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Vanberg, V. (1994). Rules and choice in economics. London: Routledge. CrossRef

Vining, R. (1956). Economics in the united states of America: a review and interpretation of research. Paris: UNESCO.

Title: The consents of The Calculus
Author: Hartmut Kliemt
Publication date: 01-09-2012
Publisher: Springer US
Published in: Public Choice / Issue 3-4/2012
Print ISSN: 0048-5829
Electronic ISSN: 1573-7101
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-012-9996-y

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Other articles of this Issue 3-4/2012

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The Calculus of Consent at fifty: the development of public choice in Japan

James Buchanan, Gordon Tullock, and The Calculus

Modeling constitutional choice: reflections on The Calculus of Consent 50 years on

Coercion, the state, and the obligations of citizenship

From The Calculus of Consent to extended logrolling, negative externalities, and the Coase theorem

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