Rational action, human association, and the primacy of the social in human affairs

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Chapter 2 in Rethinking Public Choice, 2022, pp 18-26 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Consistent with its post-war origins, public choice overwhelmingly has developed within a framework of methodological individualism. In contrast and with some tension with standard public choice, this book treats the object denoted as society and not some hypothesized rational individual as the primary object of analysis. All the same, this chapter does not invoke some individual-society duality. To the contrary, it works with a tri-planar model where society is construed as having micro, meso, and macro planes of action and interaction, and with the meso plane denoting the nearly uncountable number of associations people incorporate into their lives. Individuals are always found in groups, and those groups govern themselves through articulating rules that are always subject to change. The good order of human societies requires appropriate understanding of the operation of these groupings which intermediate between individuals and society, and which is the locus of most action inside society.

Keywords: Economics and Finance; Politics and Public Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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