Political Economy as Social Agriculture

This is a preliminary draft of the last of the eight chapters in a book titled Politics as a Peculiar Business: Public Choice in a System of Entangled Political Economy. This chapter ventures modestly into hortatory territory, in contrast to the explanatory focus of the preceding chapters. It treats political economy as a form of societal agriculture that lies between science and moral philosophy. As science it recognizes that societies exhibit law-like qualities that are open to discovery and articulation, but are not open to repeal. As moral philosophy, it seeks to bring that science to bear on uncovering the various terms of the Faustian bargain that the use of political power injects into societies.