Public debt as a form of public finance : overcoming a category mistake and its vices
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Public debt as a form of public finance : overcoming a category mistake and its vices
（Cambridge elements, . Elements in Austrian economics / edited by Peter Boettke）
Cambridge University Press, 2019
- : pbk
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [53]-60)
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Economists commit a category mistake when they treat democratic governments as indebted. Monarchs can be indebted, as can individuals. In contrast, democracies can't truly be indebted. They are financial intermediaries that form a bridge between what are often willing borrowers and forced lenders. The language of public debt is an ideological language that promotes politically expressed desires and is not a scientific language that clarifies the practice of public finance. Economists have gone astray by assuming that a government is just another person whose impulses toward prudent action will restrict recourse to public debt and induce rational political action.
Table of Contents
- 1. Monarchies, democracies, and indebtedness
- 2. Political presuppositions and the theory of public finance
- 3. Taxes as prices - a useful but corruptible simile
- 4. From public pricing to fiscal policy - the Keynesian detour
- 5. Ecologies, not machines - analytical failures of Macro theories
- 6. Calculation and coordination within a political economy
- 7. Public debt, systemic lying, and the corruption of contract
- 8. From liberal to feudal democracy - Henry Maine reversed
- 9. Liberalism and Collectivism - an easily toxic mix.
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