Top-down and bottom-up views of public choice: should wellbeing be government's only goal?

Nick Chater

Behavioural Public Policy, 2020, vol. 4, issue 2, 254-262

Abstract: Frijters et al. make a powerful and lucid case for a top-down approach to government, in which the maximization of wellbeing should be the ultimate goal. I argue, by contrast, for a bottom-up approach: that the variety of goals, plans, norms and rules that govern our lives should be the starting point for political discussion. From this standpoint, the goal of individual and collective decision-making of all kinds is the reconciliation of conflicting objectives and priorities on a piecemeal basis. The distinction between top-down and bottom-up approaches in political decision-making parallels debates between ‘foundationalists’ and ‘coherentists’ in epistemology.

Date: 2020
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