¹ The definition of libertarianism that I adopt in the text is consistent with the definition used by David Boaz in a recent work directed at a popular audience, in which he defines libertarianism as the view that “each person has the right to live his life in any way he chooses so long as he respects the equal rights of others.” Boaz, David, Libertarianism: A Primer (New York: Free Press, 1997), p. 2Google Scholar; see also Hospers, John, “What Libertarianism Is,” in Liberty for the Twenty-First Century: Contemporary Libertarian Thought, ed. Machan, Tibor R. and Rasmussen, Douglas B. (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1995), pp. 5–17Google Scholar; and Murray, Charles, What It Means to Be a Libertarian: A Personal Interpretation (New York: Broadway Books, 1997).Google Scholar

² Smith, David, “Liberalism,” The International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (New York: Macmillan, 1991), p. 276.Google Scholar

³ Ibid.

⁴ This approach is very similar to the approach taken by Shapiro, Daniel in his essay “Why Even Egalitarians Should Favor Market Health Insurance,” elsewhere in this volumeGoogle Scholar. Shapiro argues that libertarians should promote market health insurance by using what he calls an “internal strategy,” i.e., one that accepts the goals of those who defend the welfare state, but then shows that a libertarian approach will do a better job of achieving those goals than a statist approach.

⁵ “Insurance,” in The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, vol. 2, ed. Eatwell, John, Milgate, Murray, and Newman, Peter (London: Macmillan Press, 1987), p. 868CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Arrow, Kenneth J., Essays in the Theory of Risk-Bearing (Chicago: Markham, 1971)Google Scholar; Ehrlich, Irving and Becker, Gary S., “Market Insurance, Self-Insurance, and Self-Protection,” Journal of Political Economy, vol. 80, no. 4 (07–08 1972), p. 623CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lippman, S. A., “Optimal Reinsurance,” Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, vol. 7, no. 5 (12 1972), pp. 2151–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rothschild, M. and Stiglitz, J. E., “Equilibrium in Competitive Insurance Markets: An Essay on the Economics of Imperfect Information,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 90, no. 4 (11 1975), p. 629.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶ “Insurance,” p. 868.Google Scholar

⁷ Ibid., p. 869.

⁸ Ibid.

⁹ See, e.g., Hayek, F. A., Law, Legislation, and Liberty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979)Google Scholar; Friedman, Milton, Capitalism and Freedom (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1973)Google Scholar; and Smith, Adam, The Wealth of Nations [1776] (New York: Random House, 1991).Google Scholar

¹⁰ The idea that communitarian ideals must be embraced in order for the libertarian paradigm to survive is not new: see Macedo, Stephen, “Community, Diversity, and Civic Education: Toward a Liberal Political Science of Group Life,” Social Philosophy and Policy, vol. 13, no. 1 (Winter 1996), pp. 240–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Libertarians have not ignored the communitarian vision in their scholarly writings: see, e.g., Holmes, Stephen, The Anatomy of Antiliberalism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), chs. 7 and 11Google Scholar; Kukathas, Chandran, “Liberalism, Communitarianism, and Political Community,” Social Philosophy and Policy, vol. 13, no. 1 (Winter 1996), pp. 80–104CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Badhwar, Neera K., “Moral Agency, Commitment, and Impartiality,” Social Philosophy and Policy, vol. 13, no. 1 (Winter 1996), pp. 1–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Rasmussen, Douglas B., “Community versus Liberty?”Google Scholar in Machan, and Rasmussen, , eds., Liberty for the Twenty-First Century, pp. 259–87Google Scholar. Unfortunately, libertarianism's lack of success as a political movement suggests that libertarians have failed in their efforts to convince people that they will lead more meaningful—and more secure—lives under a legal regime controlled by libertarian principles.

¹¹ Most notable of these efforts is Holmes's The Anatomy of Antiliberalism. Although Holmes does recognize that notions of community are not altogether absent from libertarian thought, he does not address the central issue of this essay, which is the need for people to feel a sense of security in a libertarian world.

¹² Buchanan, James, Tollison, Robert, and Tullock, Gordon, eds., Toward a Theory of the Rent-Seeking Society (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 1980)Google Scholar. Somewhat more formally, rent-seeking refers to the process by which market participants seek to obtain higher prices for goods and services than would be obtainable under competitive market conditions. Thus, for example, when an automobile manufacturer lobbies the government for tariffs on the import of foreign cars, that lobbying process is “rent-seeking.” If the lobbying effort succeeds, the higher prices that the manufacturer can charge are called “economic rents.”

¹³ Cf. Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971).Google Scholar

¹⁴ After all, as Holmes points out (in The Anatomy of Antiliberalism, p. 200Google Scholar): “[C]ommon goods [such as justice] are enjoyed by individuals, to be sure, but jointly, not atomistically” (emphasis added).

¹⁵ Boaz, , Libertarianism: A Primer, p. 11.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Cohen, Roger, “For France, Sagging Self-image and Esprit,” New York Times, 02 11, 1997.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Locke, John, Second Treatise of Government [1690], ed. Peardon, T. P. (New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1952).Google Scholar

¹⁸ Mill, John Stuart, On Liberty [1859] (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1942), Book III.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Smith, Adam, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, ed. Campbell, R. H., Skinner, A. S., and Todd, W. B. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), Book IV, ch. 2, pp. 454, 456.Google Scholar

²⁰ Peacock, Alan, “Economic Freedom,” in The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics (supra note 5), vol. 2, p. 34.Google Scholar

²¹ Hayek, , Law, Legislation, and Liberty, vol. 3.Google Scholar

²² There are, of course, two wings of libertarian thought, one anarchist, the other minimalist. The central debate among libertarians over the past twenty-five years has been between these two strains of thought. Rothbard, Compare Murray, For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto (New York: Collier, 1978)Google Scholar; and Spencer, Herbert, Social Statics (London: John Chapman, 1851)Google Scholar; with Epstein, Richard, Simple Rules for a Complex World (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995)Google Scholar; Rand, Ayn, “Man's Rights,” in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (New York: New American Library, 1967)Google Scholar; Nozick, Robert, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974)Google Scholar. Here I follow Adam Smith's notion in advocating the absolute minimum amount of state intervention in the economy necessary to enforce the contracts made in private markets.

²³ Murray, , What It Means to Be a Libertarian, ch. 1Google Scholar; Machan, and Rasmussen, , eds., Liberty for the Twenty-First Century, p. 99Google Scholar; Locke, John, “Understanding Can Not Be Compelled,” in A Letter Concerning Toleration (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus, 1990), pp. 18–65Google Scholar; and Epstein, Richard A., “Self-Interest and the Constitution,” Journal of Legal Education, vol. 37, no. 2 (06 1987), p. 155.Google Scholar

²⁴ Macey, Jonathan R., “Property Rights, Innovation, and Constitutional Structure,” Social Philosophy and Policy, vol. 11, no. 2 (Summer 1994), p. 192.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁵ McChesney, Fred S., “Rent Extraction and Rent Creation in the Economic Theory of Regulation,” Journal of Legal Studies, vol. 16, no. 1 (01 1987), p. 103.Google Scholar

²⁶ The New Jersey law, enacted in 1990, imposed increases in the minimum wage for 1990 and 1991 with a final increase to $5.05 effective April 1, 1992; see Bureau of National Affairs, Daily Labor Report, 05 5, 1990.Google Scholar

²⁷ “American Survey,” The Economist, 04 27, 1996, pp. 25–26.Google Scholar

²⁸ Minimum Wage Increase Act of 1996, 29 U.S.C. § 206(a) (1994). The act, which implemented a gradual increase in the hourly minimum wage from the 1991 level of $4.25 to $5.15 by September 1, 1997, was embedded in the Small Business Job Protection Act of 1996 (SBJA). The SBJA's main objective is “to provide tax relief for small businesses, to protect jobs, to create opportunities, [and to] increase the take home pay of workers …” (Publ. L. No. 104–188 [H.R. 3448]).

²⁹ Card, David and Krueger, Alan, “Minimum Wage and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania,” American Economic Review, vol. 84, no. 4 (1994), pp. 772–93.Google Scholar

³⁰ “American Survey,” pp. 25–26.Google Scholar

³¹ Ibid.

³² Joudis, John, “TRB: Bare Minimum (Questionable Amendments in the 1996 Minimum Wage Law),” New Republic, 10 28, 1996Google Scholar; Richter, Paul and Gerstenzang, James, “Clinton Signs Minimum Wage Hike,” Los Angeles Times, 08 21, 1996Google Scholar; Johnson, Glen, “Weld/Kerry Minimum Wage Positions Encapsule Government Views,” Associated Press, 07 8, 1996.Google Scholar

³³ The marginal productivity of a worker is the amount of revenue that the last worker hired by a firm will add to the total revenues of the firm. Neoclassical economic theory holds that firms will continue to add workers until the revenue produced by the last worker hired falls below the costs associated with hiring that last (marginal) worker. The reasoning behind marginal productivity theory is simple: if an extra worker adds more to a firm's revenues than to its costs, then that worker should be hired. As more and more workers are hired, the amounts that the additional workers add to a firm's productivity begin to decline; i.e., the marginal productivity of additional workers declines. To calculate the marginal productivity of labor, one subtracts the cost of hiring an additional worker from the revenue to be produced by that worker. See Sloman, John, Economics (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf-Prentice Hall, 1991), p. 276.Google Scholar

³⁴ Ibid., p. 26.

³⁵ Ibid.

³⁶ See Friedman, David, The Machinery of Freedom (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1989)Google Scholar; and Mack, Eric, “Rights, Just War, and National Defense,”Google Scholar in Machan, and Rasmussen, , eds., Liberty for the Twenty-First Century, pp. 101–20Google Scholar. For a description of the prisoner's dilemma created by concerns for national security, see Davis, Morton, Game Theory: A Nontechnical Introduction (New York: Basic Books, 1983)Google Scholar; and Smith, Edwin M., “Understanding Dynamic Obligations: Arms Control Agreements,” Southern California Law Review, vol. 64 (09 1991), p. 1551.Google Scholar

³⁷ James Madison captured this sentiment in one of the most quoted passages of The Federalist Papers: “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.” Madison, James, “Federalist No. 51,” in The Federalist Papers [1788], ed. Cooke, Jacob E. (Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press, 1961), p. 349.Google Scholar

³⁸ Of course, the problem of military coups, which is discussed in the text, is wholly distinct from another problem posed by the military: namely, how to prevent a country with a large standing army from using force in adventuristic ways. Thus, for example, the experiences of the United States in Granada, Korea, Kuwait, Panama, Somalia, and Vietnam might be described as extremely costly and wasteful adventures that would not have occurred except for the fact that the U.S. had a large standing army. This criticism of the military has significant force. However, it is a criticism from within the libertarian perspective. There is no reason to think that the military forces associated with a government committed to libertarian principles would be more likely to act in adventuristic ways than the military forces associated with other forms of government.

Indeed, since libertarian organizations like the Cato Institute consistently have opposed military intervention by U.S. forces, there is reason to believe the opposite to be true. Thus, the problem discussed in the text, namely, that a libertarian state might be subject to coups by more-interventionist forms of government, must be addressed by those seeking to advance the libertarian cause. However, the problem discussed in this note, namely, that governments may use the military in inappropriate, adventuristic ways, is not a problem peculiar to libertarianism.

³⁹ See Niskanen, William, Bureaucracy and Representative Government (Chicago: Aldine-Atherton, 1971)Google Scholar, which argues that bureaucrats seek to maximize their budgets. See also von Mises, Ludwig, Bureaucracy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1944)Google Scholar; Roche, George C., America by the Throat: The Stranglehold of Federal Bureaucracy (Old Greenwich, CN: Devin-Adair, 1983).Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Macey, , “Property Rights, Innovation, and Constitutional Structure,” p. 192.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Ibid.

⁴² See Ackerman, Bruce, “The Storrs Lectures: Discovering the Constitution,” Yale Law Journal, vol. 93, no. 6 (05 1984), p. 1015.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴³ Of course, the payment from P to R would diminish P's incentives to produce, and thus the total level of production might decrease from 140 under a new constitutional regime in which P had to make wealth transfers to R. If P's productivity fell below the level at which its aggregate wealth fell to 60 or below, the constitutional reform effort would fail, because P has the power to block the reform and P would be worse off under the new regime than under the old regime in which P's aggregate wealth was 60.

⁴⁴ Macey, , “Property Rights, Innovation, and Constitutional Structure,” p. 193, n. 31.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Of course, it is important to distinguish those countries that are still run by (unreformed) communists from those countries that are being run either by noncommunists or by reformed communists. But this distinction fits within the model presented in the text: those countries that have enjoyed relative success in making the transition to market-driven economies are those in which the bureaucrats have been co-opted into the privatization process. See, e.g., economist Thomas W. Hazlett's description of state managers' involvement in privatization in the Czech Republic: Hazlett, , “The Czech Miracle: Why Privatization Went Right in the Czech Republic,” Reason, 04 1995Google Scholar; and Hazlett, , “Bottom-Up Privatization: The Czech Experience,” in The Privatization Process: A Worldwide Perspective, ed. Anderson, Terry and Hill, P. J. (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1996)Google Scholar. This cooption has involved keeping large numbers of bureaucrats in leadership positions, either within the bureaucracy or within the newly privatized enterprises. It is precisely in this way that reformers have been able to pay the price for reform by “buying off” the politicians and bureaucrats capable of blocking such reform. See Colombatto, Enrico and Macey, Jonathan R., “Path Dependence, Public Choice, and Transition in Russia: A Bargaining Approach,” Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy, vol. 4, no. 2 (Spring 1995), pp. 379–413.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Posner, Richard A., Economic Analysis of Law, 3d ed. (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1986), p. 79.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Cf. Narveson, Jan, “Contracting for Liberty,”Google Scholar in Machan, and Rasmussen, , eds., Liberty for the Twenty-First Century, pp. 19–39Google Scholar. Narveson argues that constitutional creation should focus on rights alone.

⁴⁸ Hayek, , Law, Legislation, and Liberty, vol. 3.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Mill, , On LibertyGoogle Scholar; see also Mill, John Stuart, Principles of Political Economy (New York: D. Appleton, 1864), Book IV, ch. 7.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ See, e.g., Colombatto, and Macey, , “Path Dependence, Public Choice, and Transition in Russia.”Google Scholar

⁵¹ On the other hand, these provisions may simply be holdovers from the thought process instilled in people for fifty to seventy-five years under communism.

⁵² It is true that wealth transfers may be another type of buy-off, but since money is transferred overtly, widely dispersed factions can mount political pressure against such payments, reducing the total amount of rent-seeking that actually occurs.

⁵³ See Hazlett, , “The Czech Miracle”Google Scholar; Hazlett, , “Bottom-Up Privatization”Google Scholar; and Colombatto, and Macey, , “Path Dependence, Public Choice, and Transition in Russia.”Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Tanner, Michael, The End of Welfare: Fighting Poverty in Civil Society (Washington, DC: Cato Institute, 1997), pp. 131–49.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ See Posner, , Economic Analysis of Law, p. 439.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Ibid., p. 440.

⁵⁷ As Posner describes the problem (in ibid., p. 440):

The altruist faces a free-rider problem. A in our example will derive welfare from the increase in B's income whether or not A is the source of the increase. Naturally A would like to buy this increase in his welfare at the lowest possible price, so he will have an incentive to hang back in giving to charity in the hope that others will give. It might seem that regardless of what others give his contributions will add to the total amount of resources devoted to the end he values. But this is not certain. His contributions may lead others to cut back their contributions, since now a smaller contribution on their part will buy the same reduction in poverty. So A will get less than a dollar benefit for every dollar he contributes, and this will lead to a lower contribution.

⁵⁸ Matching grants are suggested because such grants would mitigate the free-rider problem associated with making charitable gifts that is discussed in the text. See ibid., section 19.3, pp. 496–99.

⁵⁹ Malkiel, Burton, A Random Walk Down Wall Street (New York: W. W. Norton, 1985), pp. 305–6.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Posner, , Economic Analysis of Law, p. 441.Google Scholar

⁶¹ See Friedman, Milton, Free to Choose: A Personal Statement [1979] (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1990), pp. 18–19, 137–38.Google Scholar

⁶² Historically, the majority of insurance against loss of employment was provided by family members, or by private charity. The government has, to a considerable extent, succeeded in crowding out support by these institutions.

⁶³ Macey, Jonathan R. and Miller, Geoffrey P., “Double Liability of Bank Shareholders: History and Implications,” Wake Forest Law Review, vol. 27, no. 1 (1992), p. 31.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Ibid., p. 61.

⁶⁵ Ibid., p. 56.

⁶⁶ Tanner, , The End of Welfare, pp. 131–50.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ For example, someone with automobile theft insurance is less likely to buy an alarm system, or even to lock his car, than someone without such insurance.

⁶⁸ Posner, , Economic Analysis of Law, p. 441.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Ibid.

⁷⁰ Downs, Anthony, in his classic work Inside Bureaucracy (Boston: Little, Brown, 1967)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, observed that, over time, all bureaucracies will substitute private, bureaucratic objectives for the public objectives that characterized their origination.

⁷¹ See Rasmussen, , “Community versus Liberty?” (supra note 10).Google Scholar

⁷² Dornbusch, Rudiger, “The Case for Trade Liberalization in Developing Countries,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 6, no. 1 (Winter 1992), p. 69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁷³ Ibid., p. 70.

⁷⁴ Fukuyama, Francis, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Free Press, 1992).Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Fukuyama, Francis, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity (New York: Free Press, 1995), p. 13.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ Berkeley economist Laura D'Andrea Tyson, former chairman of President Clinton's council of economic advisors, has been the most outspoken of these critics of free markets. See, e.g., Johnson, Chalmers, Tyson, Laura D'Andrea, and Zysman, John, eds., Politics and Productivity (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger Books, 1989)Google Scholar. Perhaps the most important book in this genre is Fallows, James, Looking at the Sun: The Rise of the New East Asian Economic and Political System (New York: Pantheon Books, 1994).Google Scholar

⁷⁷ Fukuyama, , Trust, p. 15.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ Ibid., pp. 15–16.

⁷⁹ Ibid., p. 16.

⁸⁰ This point is now well-known in the literature of corporate finance. It was originally made in Manne, Henry, “Mergers and the Market for Corporate Control,” Journal of Political Economy, vol. 73 (1965), pp. 141–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸¹ Peltzman, Sam, “Toward a More General Theory of Regulation,” Journal of Law and Economics, vol. 19, no. 2 (08 1976), pp. 211–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸² See Brennan, Geoffrey and Buchanan, James M., The Power to Tax: Analytical Foundations of the Fiscal Constitution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980)Google Scholar; Brennan, G. and Buchanan, J. M., The Reason of Rules: Constitutional Political Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985)Google Scholar; Buchanan, James M. and Tullock, Gordon, The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1962)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hayek, , Law, Legislation, and LibertyGoogle Scholar; McKenzie, R., Constitutional Economics (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1984)Google Scholar; and Macey, Jonathan R., “Promoting Public-Regarding Legislation through Statutory Interpretation: An Interest Group Model,” Columbia Law Review, vol. 86, no. 2 (03 1986), pp. 223–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸³ U.S. Constitution, Amendment V.

⁸⁴ U.S. Constitution, Amendment II.

⁸⁵ See Macey, , “Property Rights, Innovation, and Constitutional Structure,” pp. 194–95.Google Scholar

⁸⁶ Buchanan, and Tullock, , The Calculus of Consent, pp. 233–48.Google Scholar

⁸⁷ Macey, Jonathan R., “The Theory of the Firm and the Theory of Market Exchange,” Cornell Law Review, vol. 74 (1989), p. 56.Google Scholar

⁸⁸ Ibid., p. 53.

⁸⁹ Tullock, Gordon, “Public Choice,” in The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics (supra note 5), p. 1044.Google Scholar

⁹⁰ Weingast, Barry R., “The Economic Role of Political Institutions: Market-Preserving Federalism and Economic Development,” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, vol. 11, no. 1 (01 1995), p. 2.Google Scholar

⁹¹ Ibid., p. 15.

⁹² Aristotle, , Politics, Book II, chs. 11–12.Google Scholar

⁹³ Fukuyama, , Trust, p. 285.Google Scholar

⁹⁴ Murray, , What It Means to Be a Libertarian, p. 149.Google Scholar

⁹⁵ Ibid., p. 188; Lipset, Seymour Martin and Hayes, Jeff, “Individualism: A Double-Edged Sword,” The Responsive Community, vol. 4 (1993–1994), pp. 69–81.Google Scholar

⁹⁶ The origins of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, as the Mormon Church is called, can be traced to the revelation of the Moroni, Angel to Smith, Joseph in 1823.Google Scholar

⁹⁷ Fisher, Albert L., “Mormon Welfare Programs: Past and Present,” Social Science Journal, vol. 15 (1978), pp. 75–99.Google Scholar

⁹⁸ Fukuyama, , Trust, p. 291.Google Scholar

⁹⁹ Ibid.

¹⁰⁰ Ibid., p. 293.

¹⁰¹ Ibid., p. 304.

¹⁰² Ibid., pp. 292, 304–5.

¹⁰³ Light, Ivan H., Ethnic Enterprise in America: Business and Welfare among Chinese, Japanese, and Blacks (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), pp. 15–18.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁴ Ibid., pp. 30–44.

¹⁰⁵ Ibid.

¹⁰⁶ Admittedly, some modern authors have recognized the need to defend libertarian arguments against communitarian criticism. See Rasmussen, , “Community versus Liberty?”Google Scholar; Macedo, , “Community, Diversity, and Civic Education”Google Scholar; Kukathas, , “Liberalism, Communitarianism, and Political Community”Google Scholar; and Badhwar, , “Moral Agency, Commitment, and Impartiality.”Google Scholar However, these authors represent a minority of those writing in the libertarian camp.

¹⁰⁷ Putnam, Robert, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993).Google Scholar

¹⁰⁸ de Tocqueville, Alexis, Democracy in America, ed. Mayer, J. P., trans. Lawrence, George (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1969), pp. 513–14.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁹ “Rational ignorance” refers to the fact that sometimes the costs of discovering something are greater than the benefits that come from the discovery. For example, it is not worthwhile for a taxpayer to spend $100 to discover that a government program is wasteful when the government program being investigated only costs that particular taxpayer $25. In this case, the taxpayer is “rationally ignorant” of this wasteful program.