Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Tate Fegley surveys the big ideas of public choice—politics analyzed with the tools of economics—and shows where an Austrian approach sharpens them. Rational ignorance, concentrated benefits and dispersed costs, rent-seeking, the transitional gains trap, budget-maximizing bureaucracies, and the logic of collective action each get a turn, illustrated with sugar tariffs, million-dollar taxi medallions, and Sowell's Benedict Arnold thought experiment. Fegley's throughline: public choice is strongest when it drops the neoclassical assumptions of perfect knowledge and static equilibrium and grounds itself in Austrian subjectivism.
Recorded at the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, on July 22, 2026.
Mises University is the world's leading instructional program in the Austrian School of economics, and is the essential training ground for economists who are looking beyond the mainstream.
0:00 Intro: Public Choice and Its Founders
3:08 What Is Public Choice? Politics Without Romance
6:32 Rational Ignorance
9:38 Concentrated Benefits, Dispersed Costs
13:19 Rent-Seeking and the Tullock Trapezoid
17:04 The Trouble with Neoclassical Welfare
20:40 The Transitional Gains Trap
25:07 Bureaucratic Incentives and the Washington Monument Syndrome
29:12 The Logic of Collective Action
34:04 The Calculus of Consent
37:59 Austrian Critiques: When Public Choice Is Insufficiently Austrian
Find free books, daily articles, podcasts, lecture series, and everything about the Austrian School of Economics at https://Mises.org.
X ► https://x.com/mises/
Facebook ► facebook.com/mises.institute
Instagram ► instagram.com/misesinstitute
SoundCloud ► soundcloud.com/misesmedia
Apple Podcasts ► podcasts.apple.com/us/artist/mises-institute/1280664810
Rumble ► rumble.com/c/c-2212754
Odysee ► odysee.com/@mises
Podcasts ► mises.org/podcasts
Tate Fegley surveys the big ideas of public choice—politics analyzed with the tools of economics—and shows where an Austrian approach sharpens them. Rational ignorance, concentrated benefits and dispersed costs, rent-seeking, the transitional gains trap, budget-maximizing bureaucracies, and the logic of collective action each get a turn, illustrated with sugar tariffs, million-dollar taxi medallions, and Sowell's Benedict Arnold thought experiment. Fegley's throughline: public choice is strongest when it drops the neoclassical assumptions of perfect knowledge and static equilibrium and grounds itself in Austrian subjectivism.
Recorded at the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, on July 22, 2026.
Mises University is the world's leading instructional program in the Austrian School of economics, and is the essential training ground for economists who are looking beyond the mainstream.
0:00 Intro: Public Choice and Its Founders
3:08 What Is Public Choice? Politics Without Romance
6:32 Rational Ignorance
9:38 Concentrated Benefits, Dispersed Costs
13:19 Rent-Seeking and the Tullock Trapezoid
17:04 The Trouble with Neoclassical Welfare
20:40 The Transitional Gains Trap
25:07 Bureaucratic Incentives and the Washington Monument Syndrome
29:12 The Logic of Collective Action
34:04 The Calculus of Consent
37:59 Austrian Critiques: When Public Choice Is Insufficiently Austrian
Find free books, daily articles, podcasts, lecture series, and everything about the Austrian School of Economics at https://Mises.org.
X ► https://x.com/mises/
Facebook ► facebook.com/mises.institute
Instagram ► instagram.com/misesinstitute
SoundCloud ► soundcloud.com/misesmedia
Apple Podcasts ► podcasts.apple.com/us/artist/mises-institute/1280664810
Rumble ► rumble.com/c/c-2212754
Odysee ► odysee.com/@mises
Podcasts ► mises.org/podcasts
