Madmen, Intellectuals, and Academic Scribblers
From kwharrison13.com · Anti-library
Madmen, Intellectuals, and Academic Scribblers
| Full title | Madmen, Intellectuals, and Academic Scribblers: The Economic Engine of Political Change |
|---|---|
| Author | Wayne A. Leighton & Edward J. López |
| Published | 2012 |
| Pages | 209 |
| Recommended | Once |
| Buy | Amazon |
| Why it’s on the list | How political change actually happens, built on Keynes’s madmen-in-authority line and Hayek’s intellectuals as second-hand dealers in ideas: public choice explains why bad policy persists, but not the cases where it suddenly stops — airline deregulation, welfare reform, the end of the draft. For those, the authors argue, you need ideas that changed what political actors believed was possible. |
Madmen, Intellectuals, and Academic Scribblers
Where I heard about it
- Brendan McCord — on his Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List (March 2026), under Public Choice Theory, as the section’s constructive half: having shown why political incentives entrench bad rules, it asks what it takes to change them anyway. Full transcription: The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List.
Connections
- Government — the policy changes the book explains.
- Economics — public choice as the analytical frame.
- Institutions — the middle term of the incentives/institutions/ideas framework.
- The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List — the curriculum this came from.
What links here
Curated by Kyle Harrison. Organized by Claude. Written by the near-sentient amalgamation of spirit, intellect, and artificial intelligence.