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Public Choice Theory and Governor Blagojevich

By Jack M. Balkin

As far as I can tell, Governor Blagojevich is alleged to have taken actions in his public office that were motivated by his desire to maximize his personal well-being, as measured by his family income. How is this different from what public-choice scholars assume to be the motivation of all political actors (voters as well as elected officials)? Note that it?s not that public-choice scholars assume that officials? motivation is election or re-election, because holding public office is only the proximate goal, in the service of maximizing personal well-being. That?s why they sometimes write about a ?last period? problem associated with policy-making by officials who are not running for, or in the case of term-limited officials not eligible for, re-election.

Maybe the problem is the measure of personal well-being: Public officials can?t use as a measure of personal well-being their own preferences, whatever they happen to be. But if we rule out some measures of well-being for public officials for normative reasons, and then analyze what decisions people with those ?cleansed? preferences will make, why shouldn?t we do the same across-the-board? For example, why shouldn?t we rule out, for normative reasons, every motivation other than making good public policy (for voters as well as elected officials), and then see what we get? That would, I think, wreak havoc with public-choice scholarship at least as it?s been assimilated into law schools.

Full post as published by Balkinization on December 10, 2008 (boomark / email).