The calculus of consent Book

Engineered to perfection like revolutionary clockwork, Buchanan & Tullock's classic text is one of the most important works of political economy in the 20st Century. On the face of it, is an economizing theory of constitutional democracy, but it is much more than that. It ingeniously synthesizes several strands in political philosophy, political science, rational choice theory, and welfare economics. Every chapter is a gold mine of tantalizing premises and simple yet suggestive models leading to counter-intuitive but compelling conclusions with the help of logically airtight arguments.

The book famously relies on rather restrictive and dubious assumptions about Homo economicus that it imports from neoclassical economics (and to a lesser extent from the "realist" school of political philosophy going back to Machiavelli and Hobbes). And, in addition, it can be accused of smuggling in cultural biases about the inherent superiority of American constitutionalism. But these limitations impose an awesome discipline on the enterprise. The authors perform such amazing feats, ranging from novel methodological innovations to constitutional revolutions, with these assumptions that the end result transcends methodological or cultural limitations.

Calculus of Consent is a bottomless wishing well of innovative research programs. A new theory of constitutional democracy? Check. A revitalization of contractarian thinking? Check. A pioneering application of the economic exchange logic into politics? Check. A tentative proof of the need to apply the same model of human behaviour across all domains of human action (the behavioural symmetry assumption)? Check. A novel rediscovery of the Wicksellian unanimity principle of decision making as the appropriate political equivalent of the Pareto criterion? Check. A groundbreaking explanation of the surprising utility of logrolling in majoritarian democratic politics? Check... This book has so much exciting and novel stuff on its 300 pages!

The writing can be extremely dry, no doubt. But if you want to read Harry Potter, there's a time and a place for that. No, you come here for the harsh and brutal scientific epiphanies. Another objection correctly argues that the deductive premises of the book rely on behavioural premises that have come under a lot of fire and criticism. As a result, the policy conclusions are only exploratory and hypothetical, as the authors confess. They need to be tested empirically for validity. But without such models, there can be no advancement in science! Such models find their scientific anchor in the solid predictions and falsifiable hypotheses that the book (rightfully) celebrates as its proudest achievements. The freedom of the spirit, the pure spirit of Science, that soars in their mathematical and logical models, is an engine of the imagination that dreams of new futurities. Abstractions, too, have the potential to revolutionize the practical organization of Western democratic politics.

This, my friends, is a Titan among books. There is no school of political science or political philosophy that can dismiss all of its theses. If you try to run away and hide from this book, it will follow you home, find you, and kill you (or your illusions). It will laugh in the face of the destruction it brings. It challenges several hundred years of established wisdom! Although the book's arguments or conclusions can be contested they cannot be ignored. Like Rawls or Nozick, Buchanan & Tullock have created a contemporary classic of the highest order. It may not immediately pull at the heartstrings of the masses or inspire the songs of youth, but its dry, Apollonian exterior masques a Dionysian interior that sparks joy, wonder, and potency.