The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy (Ann Arbor Paperbacks) | 
| Authors: James M. Buchanan, Gordon Tullock
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Category: Book
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Avg. Customer Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 212728
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 384
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.4 x 0.8
ISBN: 0472061003
Dewey Decimal Number: 321.8
EAN: 9780472061006
ASIN: 0472061003
Publication Date: March 1, 1962
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Product Description
A scientific study of the political and economic factors influencing democratic decision making
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| Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
 Pathbreaking Analysis in Political Economy April 14, 2008
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
The Calculus of Consent was a pioneering book when it was first published in 1962. While this book does have some overlap with the slightly earlier work of Anthony Downs and Duncan Black, Buchanan and Tullock took the economic analysis of democracy into new territory: constitutions. Chapter six is the core of this book. Here the authors specify the logic behind cost minimizing constitutional rules concerning public choices. The ensuing chapters sort out many details regarding the workings of democracy. This book is highly abstract, but it also contains much common sense and realism.
Buchanan and Tullock make a strong case for constitutionally limited government. In some respects this is an uncontroversial assertion. Who wants unlimited government in the strict sense? Who wants totalitarianism? Well, nobody does, when you put it that way. However, many people do want to disregard constitutional limitations when it suites them (both welfare state liberals and conservatives are guilty of evading American constitutional laws). Buchanan and Tullock make you think about where "we" should draw the line between the private and public sectors. Buchanan and Tullock make you think about how "we" can draw a line between the private and public sectors. These are the big questions of political economy. Whether you agree with them or not, they will make you rethink your position (provided you keep an open mind).
My main beef with this book concerns `political opportunity costs'. How do we know the value of forgone political alternatives? Can we know the value of forgone political alternatives? My own take on this last question is rarely. I was lucky enough to take classes with Buchanan and Tullock, so they have read my work on political opportunity costs (and commented on it favorably). Well, enough self promotion (my policy conclusions differ little from theirs anyway). The Calculus of Consent is a classic in modern political economy. All political science students should read it, especially at the graduate level.
 Fascinating book April 28, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is truly a fascinating book. Few books have had a greater influence on my political thought. The initial assumptions have a libertarian bent, but the construction of the argument from there is brilliant. As for an overview of the book, I feel that Mr. Templeman's review below was just about perfect.
High praise with a grain of salt January 7, 2007
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
The main contribution of this pathbreaking book is by providing a rationale for the "counter-majoritarian difficulty": Why does society tolerate the "dead hand" of the constitutional framers to limit the freedom of choice of living individuals who wish to undo the constitution? The authors muse that in some previous stage, where individuals cannot identify their future preferences, each individual is threatened by two kinds of risk: The first is that others will attempt to take something that belongs to her and achieve their purpose by popular vote. From this prespective each individual desires that such a popular vote will not be made effectual unless supported by the largest number of participants. The second concern is that individuals might wish, in the future, to appropriate something that belongs to others, and may be thwarted by a popular vote, inimical to their cause. From this second perspective they wish to institute a rule that allows the appropriation to take place with only a minimal number of supportets. Each one of these two perils can be represented by a cost function, where the cost is a function of the number of voters necessary to carry the proposed measure; adding up the two functions generates an aggregate cost schedule for all rational players. The minimum of the aggregate function indicates the optimal number of individuals, as a portion of the voting population, necessary for carrying the proposed measure. If this number is greater than 50% of the population, this fact justifies the entrenchment of entitlements in a constitution. The grain of salt that must be added to this analysis is that the authors do not provide an explanation why that number might be greater than 50% of the population, or what might be the conditions that must be satisfied for the generation of that number.
Foundation for Studying Political Economy January 27, 2006
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
A few other reviews have dismissed this book somehow as sloppy and even halarious. I would like to just make sure that the credibility of the work put forth by Buchanan and Tullock is realized. This book, along with a number of other great accomplishments, won James Buchanan a Nobel Prize in economics. To view this work as a right wing rationalization is way off base, study the works of Buchanan and Tullock and you will realize that statement is completely ridiculous.
Classic work in economics and political organization March 28, 2005
16 out of 17 found this review helpful
The Calculus of Consent, written by James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, is one of the founding publications of what has since become known as the subdiscipline of public choice, which is the application of tools of economic analysis to the domain of political decision making. In theory, political decisions are made by elected officials in their pursuit of the "general interest" or the "common good", however defined. In reality, however, political decisions reflect the outcome of the workings of a number of interested parties, which includes voters, politicians, career government officials (bureaucrats), special-interest groups, lobbyists, etc., each of whom have their own agendas and interests. When someone appeals to the public interest while making a political argument, more often than not the underlying motive is a matter of self-interest (e.g. teachers' unions angling for larger teacher salaries under the pretext of improving public education). Public choice theory does not mean to be critical or cynical about this. Instead, it is merely intended to be descriptive: that's simply the way the political decision-making process works, and we need to understand this first before we try and improve the world through politics. For his central role in the development of public choice theory, professor Buchanan would go on to earn the 1986 Nobel prize in economics.
The book's main contribution lies in its development of the analysis of political behavior, particularly so-called logrolling (i.e. vote-trading, or political exchange). The Founding Fathers set up our political system in order for the general interest to be served rather than interests that only benefit specific groups at the expense of the rest of the population. But elected officials have learned to circumvent that intent by happily trading their vote on issues on which they don't care one way or the other in exchange for votes on issues about which they do care. All members of the legislature end up voting for each other's pet projects, which all get enacted at taxpayers' expense.
The authors propose that one solution would be to distinguish between legislative rules and constitutional rules. Legislative (statutory) rules may be adopted by simple majority coalitions pursuing their own interests. Constitutional rules, on the other hand, are supposed to be decided on without regard for short-term individual consequences ("what is right in the long run?" instead of "what's good for me today?"). Legislative rules are substantive, constitutional rules are procedural. Constitutional rules are meant to restrict abuse of the legislative process by majority coalitions. The difference between legislative and constitutional rules is perhaps somewhat idealistic. After all, what's to prevent people from voting for or against constitutional rules based on their short-term interest. In theory, people are thought to realize that "what's right" will also benefit them, as everyone else will be bound by the same rules, but in practice it doesn't always quite work that way (e.g. people may be aware that a constitutional balanced budget amendment is the morally right thing to do to prevent saddling their descendants with public debt, but as of yet no such amendment has been enacted). Still, the legislative-constitutional distinction is at least helpful as an analytical device.
As the authors acknowledge, in real life things aren't always quite as black-and-white as they have here been described. Sometimes people--yes, even some politicians--vote according to their conscience rather than according to their own self-interest. But the insights and analysis offered by the book and by public-choice theory more often than not do apply. The book is highly persuasive in demonstrating that democracy's simple-majority voting rule (50 percent plus one vote) does not inherently lead to superior decisions. For example, it offers a convincing explanation for why even in majoritarian democracy, taxes and government spending, whether on public services or on redistribution, are clearly "too large", i.e. larger than the vast majority of Americans would agree to if they were to redesign and rebuild government all over again from scratch today.
Stylistically, the book is light on math and the authors have an elegant writing style. But it is somewhat on the academic side and rather heavy on preliminaries. More comprehensive and more easily digestible treatments of issues of political decision making in a democratic context do exist, but even now, some four decades after its initial publication, the book is still considered a classic work in the history of economics and political organization. Its central section is "a simple logrolling model" (pp. 136-142 in the Buchanan Collected Works edition).
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