Some Basic Economics of Public Policy

Some Basic Economics of Public Policy by Peter Boettke:

.... a lot of individuals have been claiming that economics as a scientific discipline has been rocked by our current crisis, both due to our failure to "predict" it and our inability to "fix" it with a consensus on the right public policy. And anyone not deeply read in the history of our discipline, or who received their university education in economics in the second half of the 20th century can be excused for such a reading of the situation ....

But what if the problems are not the dead ideologies, but instead a live political pragmaticism that has forgotten the basic ideology that made possible the great growth of the wealth of nations and provides the foundation for Western civilization? Namely, private property (as Hume put it: a system of property, contract and consent), freedom of trade, and social cooperation under an international division of labor. Government rather than unleashed must be constrained; and constrained in such a binding way that it is not possible for elected officials to pursue the natural proclivities to provide privileges to political favorites (concentrating benefits and dispersing costs).