Democracy is a new form of organization in the history of humankind. We cannot be certain that it will harness the potential destructive power that modern science has created. It may not prove strong enough to meet the military challenge of a strong anti-democracy aggressor. Or it may be crushed under the weight of cumbersome decision-making processes, special interests, bureaucracy, and the seeking and granting of privilege. There is no law that says that the social events of the future must be like those of the past.
Political interaction differs fundamentally from the interaction of atoms and molecules.
It is precisely the unpredictability of democracy's future that makes it necessary to understand it as best we can. One unfortunate consequence of this is that people who know little about the history of economics tend to regard Public Choice as the ethical antithesis of Marxism. It cannot be said strongly enough that this is a big mistake . In the first place, Marxism cannot inform us about either the market economy or the demand for public goods. Marx predicted that the market economy would disappear.