The extent of public choice theory’s influence should not be exaggerated. ‘New Right’ politicians like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher would have been elected and would have sought to curtail the state whether or not public choice theory had been developed. Theirs was not a conversion on the road to Damascus prompted by a reading of James Buchanan or Gordon Tullock. But public choice theory did provide the New Right with a particular language in which the failings of the state could be dissected and a set of policy recommendations to deal with them. Whether or not it is a better place, the world is certainly a different place for the presence of public choice theory.