… is from page 81 of the original 1985 Cambridge University Press edition of Jim Buchanan’s and Geoff Brennan’s excellent book, The Reason of Rules:
Constitutional commitments or constraints become means by which members of a polity can incorporate long-term considerations into current-period decisions. In the absence of such constraints, individuals will be led, almost necessarily, to adopt a short-term perspective in politics.
DBx: Constitutional constraints – to the extent to which they are effective – create in politics something of what private property rights create in the market, namely, a discipline to reduce our tendencies to succumb excessively to our natural preference for satisfaction today over satisfaction tomorrow.
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