Friday, February 25, 2011

More on Madison

A nice piece from the Economist on the battle between Governor Walker and (some of the) public employee unions.

In addition to the thoughtful arguments it makes, the Economist piece illustrates a clever and largely untried approach to the dispute. I call it analytical thinking.

Most of the takes one reads around the internet are, instead, based on moral reasoning, or perhaps just moral ranting, sometimes supplemented with dodgy evidence from interested sources. I don't think there is really any moral content here at all, just a principal agent problem between the taxpayers and voters and their state and local governments that needs to be fixed with better institutional design.

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