Deficits, Debt, and Democracy: Wrestling with Tragedy on the Fiscal Commons

Not all commons settings have tragic outcomes, of course, but tragic outcomes loom large in democratic processes because they entail conflict between two very different forms of substantive rationality; the political and market rationalities. These are both orders that contain interactions among participants, but the institutional frameworks that govern those interactions differ, generating democratic budgetary tragedies. Those tragedies, moreover, are inherent in the conflict between the different rationalities and so cannot be eliminated. They can, as this book argues, be reduced by restoring a constitution of liberty in place of the constitution of control that has taken shape throughout the west over the past century. Economists interested in public finance, public policy and political economy along with scholars of political science, public administration, law and political philosophy will find this book intriguing. Preface 1. Budgeting: The Elusive Quest for Fiscal Responsibility 2. Budgeting and Political Economy: A Theoretical Framework 3. Budget Deficits, Ricardian Equivalence, and Macro-Micro Supervenience 4. Property Rights, Societal Tectonics, and the Fiscal Commons 5. Parliamentary Assemblies as Peculiar Market Bazaars 6. Taxation, Fiscal Politics, and Political Pricing 7. Regulation as Alternative Taxation 8. Public Finance for a Constitution of Liberty Bibliography Index