Public Debt as a Form of Public Finance: Overcoming a Category Mistake and its Vices

by Richard E. Wagner

Overview

Economists commit a category mistake when they treat democratic governments as indebted. Monarchs can be indebted, as can individuals. In contrast, democracies can't truly be indebted. They are financial intermediaries that form a bridge between what are often willing borrowers and forced lenders. The language of public debt is an ideological language that promotes politically expressed desires and is not a scientific language that clarifies the practice of public finance. Economists have gone astray by assuming that a government is just another person whose impulses toward prudent action will restrict recourse to public debt and induce rational political action.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781108735896
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	05/30/2019
Series:	Elements in Austrian Economics
Pages:	75
Product dimensions:	9.02(w) x 5.98(h) x 0.20(d)

Table of Contents

1. Monarchies, democracies, and indebtedness; 2. Political presuppositions and the theory of public finance; 3. Taxes as prices – a useful but corruptible simile; 4. From public pricing to fiscal policy – the Keynesian detour; 5. Ecologies, not machines – analytical failures of Macro theories; 6. Calculation and coordination within a political economy; 7. Public debt, systemic lying, and the corruption of contract; 8. From liberal to feudal democracy – Henry Maine reversed; 9. Liberalism and Collectivism – an easily toxic mix.