This coherent collection of papers examines some of the fundamental issues in political economy in a non-judgemental and non-ideological way. The political economy is a process of decision making and these papers attempt to identify the deepest levels of conduct of collective choice. These include official and private government, the ""rule of law"", the nature of poverty, rules and markets, deliberative and non-deliberative choice, and the operation of selective perception and of intellectual fraud in politics.