Liberalism, Socialism, and Robust Political Economy

Abstract

Robust political economy requires that both the assumptions of agent benevolence and omniscience be relaxed so that both incentive issues and knowledge problems can be adequately addressed. In this article we seek to (1) develop an understanding of the application of robustness in areas outside of political economy and use this understanding to further our appreciation of the nature of robustness in political economics, (2) explore the robustness of liberalism by considering how it performs under both worst-case motivation conditions and worst-case information conditions in the context of the arguments advanced by the classical economists and Friedrich von Hayek, and (3) explore the fragility of socialism under both best-case incentive conditions and best-case information conditions in the context of the arguments advanced by Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek.