The State as a Firm

We seem to be witnessing the rebirth of the concept of an integrated social science, a complete theory of human action and interaction in all its ramifica tions and complications. What we call society is simply the totality of human exchange. Economics is a theory of human exchange of certain types. Although the qualities of what is being exchanged as well as the conditions of exchange may vary, economic theory has recently broadened its scope sufficiently to begin to be general enough to handle these problems as well. In the present work we attempt to see what insights are revealed by the application of economic categories to political history. We feel there are many. At this point Silver stops. ! Auster continues. A quick spin around the "policy" block in the new model so to speak, hence Chapter 8. For the rest, however, this is truly a joint work. The authors' names appear in alphabetical order. After 12 years of professional asso ciation, claims to precedence in origination could too clearly be self-deception. ! Silver is even more pessimistic than Auster, in particular about which types of reforms will be accepted. With the rise to affluence of most members of our society the mass itself has become concerned with political reform as almost a new form of entertainment. Unfor tunately, they have no idea how to improve matters.