Politics as a Peculiar Business by Richard E. Wagner

Author:Richard E. Wagner [Wagner, Richard E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-01-29T00:00:00+00:00

2. MARKETS, POLITICS, AND SELECTION THROUGH COMPETITION: SOME GENERICS

To denote markets and polities as offering the relevant environments for exploring the qualitative features of selection through competition for a theory of entangled political economy is to work with some average or representative environment for each type of competition. For instance, market competition can operate under wholly private ordering or it can operate with various mixtures of public and private ordering. Moreover, there are many different ways through which the legal arrangements that encase a system of market competition can be constituted. These possible variations are different substantive environments that are covered by the generic designation of a “market economy.” Similarly, political competition can operate within systems of single-member constituencies with two candidates competing for election or within multiple-member constituencies where several of the candidates can be elected. Moreover, a democratic system can be federal or unitary. If it is federal, the national government might have independent authority to raise revenue. Alternatively, that authority could be limited. For instance, its revenues might be granted to it by the states acting in the capacity as a legislative conference. Just as it is reasonable to think that market and electoral environments would select for different qualities, so is it reasonable to think that differences in specific environmental arrangements would likewise select for different qualities. The analysis here, however, will keep to a relatively generic level of comparison.

The prime commonality of market and electoral competition is that a set of candidates seek to be selected through some competitive process. Market competition is judged by a “market test;” electoral competition is judged by an “electoral test.” Are these tests identical or nearly so, or are they disparate? Both forms of competition declare some entrants into the competition to be winners and the rest to be losers. This doesn’t mean that both forms select for identical qualities, any more than it means that a swimming team could be reasonably selected by watching the candidates dive. There is a structural similarity in that in both types of competitive activity candidates pitch appeals to people who select the winner of that competition. While the competitive form is universal, there is also huge variety in the substantive environments within which competition occurs.

Within a democratic system, voters are similar to the stockholders of a corporation. Voters are the residual claimants in political enterprises. If a polity is badly managed, voters as residual claimants will bear the loss either through higher taxes or through reductions in the quality of public services or both. Politicians and other political officials are similar to a company’s officers and directors, in that they direct the course of public affairs on behalf of the citizenry. Electoral competition entails candidates for office competing for support among voters. For the most part, scholars of public choice and political economy have treated that competition as occurring through detailed presentations of plans and programs. Simple observation of electoral campaigns should have put the lie to that notion long ago. There

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