Buchanan’s analysis stood in marked contrast not only to Adam Smith’s dictum that the pursuit of self-interest leads, as if “by an invisible hand,” to desirable social outcomes, but also to the prevailing approach to policy analysis, which views government as a benevolent planner, implementing textbook “solutions” to market failures.
布坎南的分析是举世瞩目的，它不仅与亚当·斯密关于对私人利益的追求会受“看不见的手”的引导，形成令人满意的社会结果的观点相悖，也与将政府视为仁慈规划者、会实施解决市场失灵问题的教科书“解决方案”的流行政策分析观点格格不入。