ABSTRACT
The allocative function is conceded to be legitimate, but the redistributive function is viewed critically and often assumed to be the dominant cause of government growth. It is the dream of public choice 'constitutionalists' somehow to get redistributive issues separately solved, and to confine government to its legitimate allocative role. Public choice theory, with its exclusive focus upon the 'political market', fails to consider the extent to which government growth is related to basic changes in social and economic conditions. An alternative, neo-Marxist explanation is that the growth of government is due to the requirements of capitalism. Government helps capitalism by providing necessary but unremunerative infrastructure, by subsidising industries, by assisting the search for new markets, by taking responsibility for workers' education and health, and by buying off discontent through welfare payments. The political entrepreneurs who launched these initiatives clearly did not believe that public choice theory applied to themselves.
