Research Article
16 December 2020

Public Goods and the Origins of Equilibrium Democracy

Publication: The Tocqueville Review
Volume 41, Number 2

Abstract

Research on the relationship between neoliberalism and democracy has mostly overlooked the important theoretical contributions of public goods theorists in extending market mechanisms beyond the economy. Yet, many aspects associated with the rise of neoliberalism would have been unimaginable without these economists’ contributions to the development of a new variety of liberal democracy, based on the model of the market. The separation of provision and production, the introduction of market-like competition in public services, and the use of performance incentives are inexplicable without reference to public goods theorists’ reinvention of politics as the demand for and supply of publicly provided goods and services. Focusing on the contributions of Paul Samuelson, Charles Tiebout, and Vincent Ostrom rather than the usual suspects associated with the Mont Pèlerin Society, the article argues that public goods theory represents a positive vision of the market-oriented democratic state that most scholars of neoliberalism have overlooked. This positive vision of marketized provision of public goods and services represents a new model of liberal democracy rather than the end of it.

Get full access to this article

View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.

Information & Authors

Information

Published In

Go to The Tocqueville Review
The Tocqueville Review
Volume 41Number 2December 2020
Pages: 65 - 86

History

Published in print: December 2020
Published online: 16 December 2020

Authors

Affiliations

Metrics & Citations

Metrics

VIEW ALL METRICS

Related Content

Citations

If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.

Format





Download article citation data for:
Jacob Jensen
The Tocqueville Review 2020 41:2, 65-86

View Options

Restore your content access

Enter your email address to restore your content access:

Note: This functionality works only for purchases done as a guest. If you already have an account, log in to access the content to which you are entitled.

View options

PDF

View PDF

EPUB

View EPUB

Full Text

View Full Text

Figures

Tables

Media

Share

Share

Copy the content Link

Share on social media

About Cookies On This Site

We use cookies to improve user experience on our website and measure the impact of our content.

Learn more

×