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By insisting that politicians are motivated by considerations no different than businessmen or anybody else, public choice economists have helped slay the pernicious myth that politicians are generally warmly other-regarding public servants. But the economist’s assumption of motivational uniformity fails to capture that politicians do in fact seem to be really odd people who don’t seem to be primarily motivated by the same considerations that motivate most of us most of the time. The incentives of the political process create a kind of filter that selects for individuals extraordinarily fixated on power and status and extraordinarily motivated to keep it. If this is right (anyone know of personality studies of politicans?), then the problem with standard public choice is that it gives too much credit to politicians by assuming they’re like everyone else and therefore it fails to capture just how exceptionally prone politicians are to narcissism, motivated cognition, self-deception, and brazen lying.
—Will Wilkinson
Blog Archive
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2009
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August
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- If we could at least agree on one thing...
- NYC decrees coffee and tobacco do not mix
- Democrats and statism
- Who decides what care is worth the cost?
- "An interview with Barney Frank"
- Perverse Lead Regulation
- Chart of the day
- FTC prohibits commercial robocalls
- America's smallest bank
- One for the nerds
- General McChrystal gets his hippie on
- Public stuff
- Hathos alert
- Kennedy's deregulatory legacy
- The first congressional website
- And the beat goes on and on
- No crying was performed during the writing of this...
- Fascism and Freedom
- Quote of the Day
- Brace for the Kennedy Memorial Health Bill
- More flawed and more influential than his brothers
- Radley and Yglesias
- Medicare as political football
- CDC promotes involuntary male genital mutilation
- Infidel employment opportunity?
- Questions about health reform
- Why do Americans like Europe?
- Big brother, big expense hole
- There goes the filibuster
- This appeals to my inner hobo
- Yeesh
- Violence: a historical perspective
- Economic purgatory
- There really are sixteen.
- Quote of the day
- Knowing your opponent
- Photo of the week
- Illegal health reform
- The crime of retail
- A trillion here, a trillion there...
- Why I oppose government programs
- Quote of the day
- Political utility of terror threats
- Heads up
- Crime rates
- Rand Paul's money bomb
- Charlie always was an opportunist
- 2girls1bike
- Government does great stuff
- Japanese pig rodeo
- Tribute to the First Amendment
- Medicare's insolvency
- Science proves zombies could annihilate humans
- Why McCain lost
- Moderate is the new liberal, or we're all socialis...
- GOP hopeful Mike Huckabee
- DNA evidence can be fabricated, scientists show
- Evolution of the public option
- Prohibitions
- Congress deadlocked over how to not provide health...
- Refreshment contraband
- Quote of the day
- Obama's behavioral economics working a bit too well
- Government Spending vs. Economic Growth
- Stat of the day
- Telling Grandma 'No'
- "Put down the hammer"
- Obama's health-care plan won't make time stand still
- Slippery slope
- Extreme social conservatism
- Quote of the day
- Level playing field, hah
- Tax propaganda
- Crazy Islamism watch
- Public option ignorance
- Your name is Icarus, ctd.
- Dead heat
- Your papers, please
- "How American Health Care Killed My Father"
- I am sooo doped right now......
- "Why I Interrupted Bill Clinton’s Speech at Netroo...
- Reality check
- Carbon taxes and market distortions
- How Dems lost control of the debate
- Why we desperately need to cut spending after the ...
- Straight talk on health-care
- Hawking wares inside the bubble
- BSG reremake
- This elephant doesn't forget
- What Social Security teaches us about health-care
- Public health-care and loss of innovation
- Bill to legalize online poker introduced in the Se...
- Advocacy group decries PETA's inhumane treatment o...
- Obama, lobbyists, take active roles in talks on he...
- Where is this?
- Recession declared over; expansion begins
- Riding the fox
- Finally, an issue I can get behind.
- At what cost, cutting off a leg?
- How to improve health-care without spending other ...
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