… is from page 33 of Randy Holcombe’s 2023 paper “Untangling Political Economy,” which is chapter 2 of The Legacy of Richard E. Wagner (Peter J. Boettke and Christopher J. Coyne, eds., 2023):
The big difference, however, is that market entities deal with each other only through voluntary transactions, so both sides must agree that they are better off for the transaction to occur. The threat of force stands behind transactions with government entities.
DBx: Yes. And this difference between non-governmental action – “private” action – and governmental action is both categorical and important. Further, this difference doesn’t disappear just because the government is elected democratically.
