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Gordon Tullock Quotes

Gordon Tullock was an economist and professor of law and Economics at the George Mason University School of Law. He is best known for his work on public choice theory, the application of economic thinking to political issues. He was one of the founding figures in his field. Wikipedia  

✵ 13. February 1922 – 3. November 2014
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Gordon Tullock: 6 quotes0 likes

Famous Gordon Tullock Quotes

“The modern state is largely a mechanism for transferring funds from one person to another. What we economists call public goods are provided by the state but are now only a part of it. The United States is not as far along in this procedure as many other countries, but in our case the federal government pays out in various types of transfers a significant percent of the amount it collects in taxes. Most of the European countries are even more dominated by the legacy of Bismarck.”

Gordon Tullock

Public Goods, Redistribution and Rent Seeking (2005), Ch. 5 The legacy of Bismarck

“Clearly the present organization of the scientific community, cutting across the lines of nation states, bureaus, and almost all previously existing institutions, cannot be the result of conscious planning. There is, today, a good deal of organizational planning, but all of the instrumentalities which engage in this activity were founded after the development of science was well under way. Further, most of these organizations are parochial in nature, concerning themselves with only some special part of the scientific community like mathematical biophysics or Russian science. There is no general institution which has shaped or now can shape the development of science, only a mass of institutions which provide little more than liaison (and sometimes funds) for the scientific “producers.””

Gordon Tullock

The Organization of Inquiry (1966) Ch 1. The Social Organization of Science

“A government does not, in general, just go about the world doing good. It has to be pushed into it.”

Gordon Tullock

"Rent Seeking: The Problem of Definition"

“The dominant form of government in the world today is dictatorship. Further throughout history, dictatorship has been the commonest form of government, indeed, for much of history the only form of government in the world.”

Gordon Tullock

"Industrial Organization and Rent Seeking in Dictatorships"

“What is important will be manipulated by the government.”

Gordon Tullock

Tullock challenges: happiness, revolutions, and democracy

“Today we have great laboratories and individual research projects employing thousands of scientists, but the interrelation between these giant laboratories, and between them and the myriad of individual investigators, is still one of voluntary, and almost unconscious, co-operation. It is not based on central planning or hierarchic organization. But as any economist knows, the fact that there is no one who can give commands does not mean that there is no social organization.”

Gordon Tullock

The Organization of Inquiry (1966) Ch 1. The Social Organization of Science

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