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8 Const. Pol. Econ. 3 (1997)

handle is hein.journals/constpe8 and id is 1 raw text is: Constitutional Political Economy, 8, 3-13 (1997) © 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston. Manufactured in The Netherlands. Some Reflections on The Calculus of Consent MICHAEL BROOKS Department of Economics, University of Tasmania, GPO Box 252C Hobart 7001, Australia Abstract. Buchanan and Tullock claim in The Calculus of Consent that their analysis does not depend for its validity on the assumption of homo economicus. Some thirty years later Brennan and Buchanan argued that homo economicus is the relevant assumption for institutional design. If the prime task of comparative institutional analysis is conceived to be how the views and interests held by one individual can be reconciled with the views and interests of others, then either altruistic or self-centred behavior can be relevant to the analysis depending on the case at hand. Buchanan and Tullock's claim is therefore not without some justification. JEL classification: D70. 1. Introduction In recent years a number of papers have appeared that evaluate basic elements of Buchanan and Tullock's The Calculus of Consent (1962). Indeed, the authors themselves have turned their own pens to offering their account of The Calculus one score and five years on. In their separate papers, Buchanan (1988) relates the broad themes of their work to the Wicksellian tradition, while Tullock (1988) basically laments that many of the analytical challenges raised in The Calculus have not been analysed in the subsequent literature. As for the evaluations by others, they have been, for the most part, laudatory and rightly so. With the benefit of hindsight one can marvel at the rich and full agenda that was set so many years ago. This paper examines a puzzle associated with a broad-sweeping statement made by Buchanan and Tullock with reference to the behavioral assumptions used in The Calculus. I come not to criticise Buchanan and Tullock but to praise their general and path-breaking treatment of institutional choice-an intellectual advance that seems to be too narrowly conceived in the subsequent literature. In addressing the puzzle over the behavioral foun- dations, it will be also demonstrated that modern syntheses have failed to do justice to one of the central tools cast in The Calculus. 2. Homo Economicus in The Calculus In another paper that examines the broad themes found in public choice theory, Buchanan (1989:23) indicates that Tullock brought to The Calculus an emphasis on modeling all public choosers (voters, politicians, bureaucrats) in strict self-interest terms that comple- mented his own inclination to employ a politics-as-exchange framework. The impression so created is that the notion of homo economicus used throughout The Calculus is identical to the knavish conception used in modern constitutional economics, at least of the variant associated with Brennan and Buchanan (1985).

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