Thursday, July 24, 2008

Blockquoting X

This time, X refers to Chris Coyne. From After War:
The first major hurdle is the knowledge problem. In short, policymakers and academics lack the knowledge of how to construct liberal democratic institutions where they do no already exist. The second hurdle is the political decision-making process. Policymakers must act within a set of political institutions that will tend to distort the policies driving the reconstruction process. It is critical to realize the implications of this second impediment to successful reconstruction. Even if policymakers possessed the necessary know-how regarding the construction of liberal institutions, we have good reason to believe that the political process would distort the actual implementation of the policies and directives based on that knowledge and information.
I would say this is an excellent use of Public Choice and Austrian theory. At the intersection of these two distinct perspectives lies an incredible argument against political action of any sort: they don't know how; and even if they did, they couldn't. Comments open.

No comments: