The role of government is to make sure that the interplay of
individual self-interests operates freely and fairly. Obviously, this perspective
is consistent with public choice economics and the New Public Management
(see Kamensky 1996), and public choice theorists have largely endorsed this
view. For example, James Buchanan, a leading public choice theorist, has argued that while altruism often enters into public deliberations, political
institutions should be designed so as to minimize the extent to which institutions
rely on altruistic behavior (quoted in Mansbridge 1994, 153).