"If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external or 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 lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself" James Madison.

Economists are to their core naysayers. The dismal science tells others that they cannot have all of the goods and resources they wish to have in the world. Benevolent politicians are equally scarce, perhaps even more so than normal commodities.

In his "Theory of Moral Sentiments" Adam Smith wrote that incentive structures helped to determine a negative or positive welfare effect on those affected by a policy or institutional arrangement. Government institutions are not to be excluded in this assessment and can with ease be interpreted through political economy.

James Buchanan classified public choice theory as “politics without romance", using the mind of an economist to interpret political activity subject to constraints and incentives that face particular political institutional arrangements. Market externalities exist and are encouraged by many to be addressed by government or public intervention, nevertheless, there is another failure that is not entertained as much in this assessment and that is government failure. Public choice allows us to understand government failure, the exploitation of these failures, and the ways that we can fix the current American political system. Public choice also incorporates why it is so difficult to change the system and to seal off the “leviathan” of government and skepticism towards disciples of Thomas Hobbes who believed government institutions - even the worst - to be necessarily right to keep civilized the man of nature from destroying himself. James Buchanan, Gordon Tullock, and the duo of Eleanor and Vincent Ostrom advanced the field of political economy and public choice in a direction that permits economists and political scientists to develop more reliable measures to enhance overall governance. Fending off those who wish to assume government to be a cure instead of an occasional solution – or from my perspective an often danger—for most issues.

Public choice assesses voters and politicians under the same constraints that any self-interested citizen would have. Shopping for politicians is no different than the voters searching for and obtaining the most utility out of any bundle of goods. Figure 1 has a “moderate” voter looking for a candidate in an election. Candidate A provides them with the greatest increase in provided utility whereas candidates C and B provide a lower utility. Intuitively a self-interested citizen who wishes to maximize their ex-ante utility will then vote candidate A.

Figure 1

The vitriol from the American public towards bureaucrats and political parties is that politicians "never believe what they say". Politicians, in general, have an unfavorable standing among Americans. To run a political campaign and to get elected it is hard for the politician to run on a virtuous party platform - especially during a national election – as political views and stances are ever transforming. Just as the voter is attempting to maximize their utility during the election so is the politician during the election cycle and the trend towards politicians “selling out” are understood when using basic game theory.

Figure 1

Figure 1 shows the real ideological preferences of the candidates. The "green candidate" truly believes in the political ideology espoused by a policy platform of the "left party" at position two, whereas our "purple candidate" believes the ideology of the "right party" at position 7. Political platforms from a range of one to ten, one being “far left” and ten being “far right”. "Green" being at position two provides the highest level of utility for all voters who identify with position two. Voters who identify themselves ideologically at positions one, three, and four gain less utility from "green" but more utility than they would from "purple" and, therefore, vote for "green," allocating 40 percent of the voter market to "green." "Purple" instead starts their campaign from position seven. Voters who identify with position seven gain a maximum utility in voting for the candidate. Voters who are ideologically in positions five, six, eight, nine, and ten do not earn the most amount of utility they could have had, but obtain more utility voting for "purple" than they would for "green." "Purple" has a dominant position now as they have taken 60 percent of the market as voters attempt to maximize their utility whereas "green" only gains 40 percent. As politics is a winner takes all game, and "green" is self-interested in getting elected for various reasons "green" will shift their political campaign to position four, as a reaction moving "purple" to position five to capture an equivalent portion of the voting market. Those to the left of position five will vote for "green" regardless of their ideological differences as they would rather have that candidate than someone right of position five, even if someone is from position one does not obtain the most utility out of the situation they can still salvage some utility. "Purple" gains an equal portion of the voter pool from position six as those to the right of position six will not vote for anything left of position six as the opposing candidate bottlenecks their behavior, portrayed by figure two. Leading to an eventual moving to the center with both parties having similar platforms except for a few moderate changes. Public choice refers to this tendency by politicians as the median-voter theorem, wherein politicians treat voters similar to market goods and adjust their behavior to the incentives provided by a democratic system.

Figure 2

Politics is then driven by those voting at the center of the left-right dichotomy as opposed to those that belong to the poles. Dealing with multiple parties and ideas that can compete at a broader level, or if the political system incorporated a proportional parliament, would ameliorate some of the issues. But in a country similar to the United States where districts are determined by “first past the post” or “winner takes all” systems the parties will cater to what they perceive their base to be as opposed to ideas they honestly trust will change their districts for the better.

Voters who become more frustrated by voting institutions in the United States have seen a shift away from politically centered rhetoric to more partisan candidates. Forcing candidates to move their positions more to the right or more to the left in order to appeal to potential voters but, in the end, posturing themselves in a careful position to attempt to maximize what the politician believes to be their overall utility.