Politics as a Peculiar Business: Additive vs. Entangled Political Economy

Abstract

This is a preliminary draft of the third of what will be eight chapters in a book titled Politics as a Peculiar Business: Public Choice in a System of Entangled Political Economy. This chapter contrasts two approaches to working with the compound noun “political economy.” The standard, additive framework treats polity and economy as distinct objects, and with polity intervening into economy to change its attributes. The alternative, entangled framework treats polity and economy as comprising a single system that is only partially decomposable into separate subsystems. This alternative framework sets forth an alternative treatment of property rights and of the capital accounts of political enterprises.