Dialogical Values in Public Goods Provision

Economic incentive theory is used to examine whether the attractive properties of Habermasian dialogue can be achieved in public goods provision. The aim is to enhance realism in the expected results of communicative planning. Hard trade-offs must be made, as manipulation and exclusion cannot be eliminated from democratic processes while other desirable qualities are retained. Demand-revealing schemes can remove citizens' motives to misrepresent their preferences for public goods and “free-ride” on others' contributions. However, the planners designing these schemes might have motives to behave opportunistically and collect too much money for administering the system. Two proposals for reducing this surplus and correcting the demotivating effects of its collection are studied. Results show that new participatory planning bodies are required to make amendment procedures work. Hence, some efficiency problems in public goods provision can be solved by expanding dialogue. This reveals a noteworthy common interest between communicative planners and economists.