Political Prices and Institutional Obstacles in Maffeo Pantaleoni

Journal title HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND POLICY
Author/s Nicolò Bellanca
Publishing Year 2025 Issue 2025/1
Language English Pages 14 P. 81-94 File size 88 KB
DOI 10.3280/SPE2025-001005
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Maffeo Pantaleoni’s concepts of political prices and economic prices explore institutional change and the dynamics of rent-seeking society. He distinguishes between objective discriminations, which conform to the reproductive logic of an institution, and those that are entirely arbitrary. Additionally, he distinguishes between criteria of impartiality, which treat everyone the same way, and criteria of universalizability, which apply a rule regardless of whom it may benefit or harm. Through these concepts, he defines economic prices as characterized by proscriptive rules, which prohibit certain choices, rather than prescriptive rules, which allow certain options for some and not for others. They cannot eliminate privileges, but they eliminate privileged access to privileges. Their antithesis is political prices, which emerge when groups compete with each other to grab rents and maintain privileges. The more the system of political prices generalizes across all institutions (private, public, commercial) of society, the less it can sustain itself, as every group desires to benefit from it, but no one wants to finance it. Here lies the historical resilience of economic prices.

Keywords: Maffeo Pantaleoni, political prices, economic prices, institutional change, rent-seeking society, distributive coalitions

Jel codes: B15, E7, K4, O11, P5

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Nicolò Bellanca, Political Prices and Institutional Obstacles in Maffeo Pantaleoni in "HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND POLICY" 1/2025, pp 81-94, DOI: 10.3280/SPE2025-001005