> "public choice theory is racist, and if you believe it you’re a white supremacist."
That's a really uncharitable reading of the Baffler piece which says that public choice theory has been used as an argument to cover policies that were racist in intent and effect.
The Baffler piece is long but this is probably the key para:
"Buchanan proposed that Virginia could finesse the question of full compliance with Brown and avoid leaving the impression that the state wished to revert to crude Jim Crow standards of race privilege. Buchanan’s innovative solution was the introduction of school vouchers, which would empower parents to send children to schools of their choice on the public dime, while also working to buttress the prerogatives of white and affluent populations in restricting broader cross-racial access to the public good of state-financed education. He contended that a voucher system was the best allocation of educational resources because it would compel schools to compete for students and resources, which would lead to educational improvement. On paper, at least, Buchanan was advocating a market-based, seemingly race-neutral policy solution. In effect, however, it allowed for the continued perpetuation of segregation. For example, Virginia’s Prince Edwards County shuttered its public schools in 1959 while doling out vouchers to students who attended private schools that only accepted white children. As a result, black children in Prince Edwards County went without formal education for more than five years."
>In marking Calhoun’s political philosophy as the crucial antecedent of public choice theory, Tabarrok and Cowen unwittingly confirmed what critics have long maintained: libertarianism is a political philosophy shot through with white supremacy. Public choice theory, a technical language nominally about human behavior and incentives, helps ensure that blacks remain shackled.
This paragraph closes the first section of the article, and very clearly says "public choice theory pretends to be about facts about human behaviour, but really it's a racist tool of exploitation".
That's a really uncharitable reading of the Baffler piece which says that public choice theory has been used as an argument to cover policies that were racist in intent and effect.
The Baffler piece is long but this is probably the key para:
"Buchanan proposed that Virginia could finesse the question of full compliance with Brown and avoid leaving the impression that the state wished to revert to crude Jim Crow standards of race privilege. Buchanan’s innovative solution was the introduction of school vouchers, which would empower parents to send children to schools of their choice on the public dime, while also working to buttress the prerogatives of white and affluent populations in restricting broader cross-racial access to the public good of state-financed education. He contended that a voucher system was the best allocation of educational resources because it would compel schools to compete for students and resources, which would lead to educational improvement. On paper, at least, Buchanan was advocating a market-based, seemingly race-neutral policy solution. In effect, however, it allowed for the continued perpetuation of segregation. For example, Virginia’s Prince Edwards County shuttered its public schools in 1959 while doling out vouchers to students who attended private schools that only accepted white children. As a result, black children in Prince Edwards County went without formal education for more than five years."