… is from page 531 of the 2011 revised and enlarged edition of Thomas Sowell’s 2009 book Intellectuals and Society (link added):
When government is spoken of explicitly by the intelligentsia, it is often depicted as if it is simply an expression of a Rousseauian “general will,” rather than a collection of politicians, bureaucrats and judges, responding to the incentives and constraints confronting politicians, bureaucrats and judges. That there should be a separate specialty as “public choice” economics, in which government officials’ actions are analyzed in terms of the incentives and constraints of their circumstances, is a sign of how atypical such an approach is among intellectuals.
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