> In this context, public choice is a bit of a chicken-egg issue.
> In principle, there is nothing wrong with analyzing the material
> basis for decisions by government bureaucrats, politicians, and
> voters. Marxists do that too. Obviously it's all in the way
> you do it. Some public choicers are not right-wing, including
> Mancur Olson and Dennis Mueller (both professors of mine), though
> the right-wing (really libertarian) dominance is real enough.
====================
Did Olson ever repudiate the manner in which the neocons-Reaganites appropriated his analysis of unions in LCA and TR&DoN in order to justify their attacks on same? I remember DC in the 80's-90's one couldn't have an argument with a right-winger without Olson's name popping up in defense of their position which is why I included him on my list. Two additions to my list would be Gordon Tullock, one of whose books was on prominent display in DC bookstores after Gingrich began his short megalomaniacal trajectory, and the faux sociologist Charles Murray [no relation thank you very much....]
BTW, given the utterly positivist methods inscribed in Olson's works, he is a conservative on at least one count. :-) His stuff fails to explain the Civil Rights movement adequately as well as the movement for Indian independence from England and the rise of Nazism etc. Somebody recently did a monograph on various social movements testing Olson's and some other ca theorists and they all came up wanting. The text is now used by some profs. at UW.
Ian