Politics and Markets
Why Democratic Institutions are Necessary
My last article was a short tirade about a George Mason economist, who recently authored a book lambasting democratic governments. A lot of his facts were right: contemporary and past democracies have never been utopias where each citizen possessed deep technical understanding of the political issues of his time. No election will likely be settled by one citizen's vote. It is hard to imagine any society with complete political equality among the citizenry. Even hunting and gathering tribes have a pecking order. But, despite these caveats, democracy can be the best polity available. (Of course, you must be ready for—witness the case of Iraq—a nation that is not there yet.) This article will pursue this argument. I will begin by citing the testimony of another practitioner of the dismal science. (Economists don’t all share the same precise models, theories and prescriptions. In spite of its plentiful math, economics is not dispassionate social physics, animated by universal, trans-historical scientific laws.)