Essential James Buchanan: Constitutional Economics

One of Buchanan's greatest insights is his work explaining the importance of rules in determining outcomes. For Buchanan, people make certain decisions-and achieve certain outcomes--specifically because of the rules they face. And so when outcomes fail to meet expectations, then we need to change the rules. Watch this video to learn more, and visit www.essentialjamesbuchanan.org.

[@nthperson]

The difficulty is in obtaining sufficient agreement on which rules produce the optimum outcomes, even when the people of a society actually largely concur on what the optimum outcomes ought to be. Those who have accumulated great wealth under existing socio-political arrangements and institutions will use that wealth to preserve long-standing legal privileges. One way to do so is to make sure that most candidates for elected office are indebted to you in any number of ways. The chances for fundamental, systemic change might be significantly increased if the election of legislators was replaced by a lottery system. Anyone willing to serve as a legislator at whatever level would be required to have first taken and passed a high school program in civics. Then, when legally-eligible to serve, a candidate would be required to take and pass an examination that determines whether the candidate possesses the basic skills and knowledge required.

[@mrgerrytube]

Rules impact outcomes. Genius 🤦🏻‍♂️

[@RubbleByte]

Laws can be changed if necessary.