Mises and Bastiat on How Democracy Goes Wrong, Part II
Author(s)
Caplan, Bryan
Abstract
In my last column, I set out Bastiat and Mises’ voter-centered explanation for the prevalence of bad economic policies. On the conventional view-widely accepted by economists, pundits, and the man in the street-the public demands policies in its own best interest, but the political system ignores their wishes. Bastiat and Mises dispute both parts of this story. They assert that democratic competition effectively drives politicians to do what the people want, but to their collective misfortune, many popular beliefs about economics are systematically mistaken. Sophisms-like “Exports make us rich, imports make us poor”-are widespread.
