Abstract
Gordon Tullock (1922–2014) contributed substantially to public choice theory and bioeconomics. This paper discusses some of these contributions. His scientific contributions have left a Nobel Prize unbestowed.
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Notes
Methodological individualism became a burning issue within biology from about 1968 on, influenced e.g. by Olson’s (1965) work on the logic of collective action. The discussion expanded from methodology to metaphysics. Scholars became more aware of the distinction with methodological collectivism (e.g. Marxism), realizing that it cannot be generally assumed that isolated individuals will strive towards the collective interest, referred to by Bentham (1789) as summum bonum. Within biology we have also experienced the controversial discussions between individual selection and group selection. Within economics such discussions have been less intense. Many economists today function happily within methodological individualism without being aware of the term.
In particular, interpreting “fighting” (which can be substituted with synonyms such as struggle, conflict, battle, etc) as a metaphor and a subcategory of competition, Hirshleifer (1995, p. 28) argued that “falling also into the category of interference struggles are political campaigns, rent-seeking maneuvers for licenses and monopoly privileges (Tullock 1967), commercial efforts to raise rivals’ costs (Salop and Scheffman 1983), strikes and lockouts, and litigation—all being conflictual activities that need not involve actual violence.”
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I thank Michael Ghiselin, Janet Landa, and Robert Tollison for useful comments.
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Hausken, K. Gordon Tullock: A Nobel Prize left unbestowed. J Bioecon 18, 121–127 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10818-016-9218-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10818-016-9218-7