From Buchanan to Khomeini

Hamid Hosseini

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 1990, vol. 49, issue 2, 167-184

Abstract: Abstract. Nobel Laureate James Buchanan and his colleagues and followers have applied the tools and methods of neoclassical economics to the study of politics, developing the theory of Public Choice, the economic study of non market decision‐making. In an effort to subject this hypothetical system to empirical validation, it is confronted with the phenomena of Ayatollah Khomeini's“ideal”Islamic State as described in the leader of Iranian theocracy's writings and as developed in contemporary Iran. The prophet Muhammad recognized no separation of politics and religion, of church and state. Faith in Islam required faith not only in the oneness of God and Muhammad's prophethood but also in the prophet's religious, moral, legal and political commands. Khomeini's revolutionary heterodoxy views his theocratic despotism as establishing the rule of the “just jurists”—the upper echelons of the clergy—and makes them and property owners the beneficiaries. Thus it is not “class neutral” as Public Choice theory requires.

Date: 1990
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