Economic Man, Contract And Majoritarian Democracy

Buchanan,the representative of public choice school,analyzes politics in economics methods,deeply criticizes the majoritarian democracy model,and puts forward the theory of constitutional democracy by contract theory.This paper focuses on Buchanan’s democratic thought.This paper first discusses the definition of Buchanan’s on the majoritarian democracy, and then, discusses the basic assumption and the theoretical basis, namely the assumption of rational economic man and contract theory, which Buchanan uses to give criticism of the majoritarian democracy.On this basis,this paper talks about Buchanan’s criticism to the majoritarian democracy:Just part of human’s interests rather than the interests of all people is protected;only short-term interests rather than long-term interests is taken into account; it also leads to economic difficulties,such as public debt crisis.to Western democracies. Finally, this paper will summarize and evaluate Buchanan’s democratic thought,question its applicability to our country,and mining its useful elements to our political practice.