Looking back, though, one can only wonder what would have happened if someone had suggested to Buchanan that he apply his public choice analysis to the decision-making calculus of General Pinochet and his colleagues when they sought his counsel. Would he have been able to step back a minute and examine the military officers and their corporate allies as self-interested actors? As they set about devising binding rules to limit what other political agents could do, would he have seen that they might be using the rule-writing process to keep themselves in power? Buchanan would title one of his
...more
