Nietzschean Development Failures

Government policies, and substantial external resources and technical assistanceprovided over the course of decades, have neither eliminated broad poverty nor resulted inequitable income distributions in the poorer countries of the world. This paper explains thedevelopment failures with reference to Nietzschean behavior where the strong act withoutethical restraint and the rule of law does not protect the weak. While Nietzschean behaviorviolates principles of social justice, there are also inefficiencies. The Nietzschean strong whorule have no incentive to adopt efficiency-enhancing policies. Efficiency in a Nietzscheansociety is also greater, the higher the leisure preference of the weak and the less the weakare capable of producing. Labor productivity is low because the weak do not consistentlywork. These are the outcomes when the strong behave as roving bandits. When the strongbehave as stationary bandits, efficiency is enhanced but income distribution can be expectedto remain unequal. The Nietzschean perspective on development failure is compared withalternative explanations for the sustained plight of the poor in poor countries and the unequaldistributions of income and wealth.     

Hobbes and the prophet Samuel on leviathan government

Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan is one of the most important treatises in the history of political economy and has influenced writings on constitutional economics and public choice. In his treatise, Hobbes proposed the desirability of voluntary subjugation to an authoritarian ruler. Hobbes appealed to the authority of the prophet Samuel to make his case for Leviathan, a precedent that has remained unquestioned for some 350 years. Yet Samuel clearly warned against the dangers of appointing an all-powerful king. Hobbes’s argument in favor of Leviathan thus demands an authority other than Samuel.     

Hobbes and Samuel: reply

Geoffrey Brennan has presented a defense of Hobbes against the claim of misrepresentation of the prophet Samuel as supporting a leviathan. He has also used the occasion of his reply to introduce embellishments that were outside of the scope of my observations concerning the prophet Samuel and Hobbes.     

International trade policy: Benevolent dictators and optimizing politicians

The claim that sophisticated non-operational efficiency-based arguments for intervention facilitate obfuscatory policy-induced income transfers will meet, in some quarters, the counterclaim that this is an overly cynical interpretation of politicians' policy motives. Rent-seeking can likewise be argued to be an overly cynical conception. The theory of rent-seeking would impute self-interest motives to the offer of payment for a cup of coffee.The different perceptions of policy motives are particularly evident when the debate turns to the existence of politically allocated rents. The beneficiaries of politically allocated rents have an interest in denying the existence of rents that have been allocated via the discretionary political process, and in claiming that observed transfers reflect socially warranted considerations.