Editing James M. Buchanan

{{Short description|American economist (1919–2013)}}
{{About|the political economist| other people with the same name|James Buchanan (disambiguation)}}
{{Use American English|date=July 2020}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=July 2024}}
{{Infobox economist
| name             = James M. Buchanan
| image            = James Buchanan by Atlas network.jpg
| alt              =
| caption          = Buchanan in 2010
|birth_name=James McGill Buchanan Jr.
| birth_date       = {{Birth date|mf=yes|1919|10|03}}
| birth_place      = [[Murfreesboro, Tennessee]], U.S.
| death_date       = {{death date and age|mf=yes|2013|01|09|1919|10|03}}
| death_place      = [[Blacksburg, Virginia]], U.S.
| institution      = [[George Mason University]]<br />[[Virginia Tech]]<br />[[University of Virginia]]
| field            = [[Public choice theory]]<br />[[Constitutional economics]]
| school_tradition = [[Virginia school of political economy|Virginia School]]
| education        = [[Middle Tennessee State University]] ([[Bachelor's degree|BS]])<br>[[University of Tennessee]] ([[Master's degree|MS]])<br>[[University of Chicago]] ([[PhD]])
| influences       = {{hlist|[[Thomas Hobbes|Hobbes]]|[[Frank Knight|Knight]]|[[Knut Wicksell|Wicksell]]|[[Gordon Tullock|Tullock]]|[[Friedrich Hayek|Hayek]]<ref name="Baird"/>|[[Ludwig von Mises|Mises]]<ref name="Baird"/>}}
| contributions    = [[Public choice theory]]<br />[[Logrolling]]<br />[[Benefit principle]]<br />[[Club good]]<br />[[Samaritan's dilemma]]
| awards           = [[Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences]] (1986)
| signature        =
| repec_prefix     = e | repec_id = pbu16
}}
'''James McGill Buchanan Jr.''' ({{IPAc-en|b|juː|ˈ|k|æ|n|ə|n}} {{respell|bew|KAN|ən}}; October 3, 1919 – January 9, 2013) was an American [[economist]] known for his work on [[public choice theory]]<ref name="Baird"/> originally outlined in his most famous work, ''[[The Calculus of Consent]]'', co-authored with [[Gordon Tullock]] in 1962. He continued to develop the theory, eventually receiving the [[Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences]] in 1986. Buchanan's work initiated research on how politicians' and bureaucrats' self-interest, utility maximization, and other non-wealth-maximizing considerations affect their decision-making. He was a member of the Board of Advisors of [[The Independent Institute]] as well as of the [[Institute of Economic Affairs]],<ref name="Buchanan_1978a" group="Works">{{cite book |last1=Buchanan |first1=James M |last2=Burton |first2=John |last3=Wagner |first3=R.E. |title=The consequences of Mr. Keynes |date=1978a |publisher=Institute of Economic Affairs |url=http://www.iea.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/files/THE%20CONSEQUENCES%20OF%20MR%20KEYNES.pdf |access-date=September 24, 2019 |archive-date=June 28, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200628192058/http://www.iea.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/files/THE%20CONSEQUENCES%20OF%20MR%20KEYNES.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> a member of the [[Mont Pelerin Society]] (MPS) and MPS president from 1984 to 1986,<ref name="membership">{{cite web|title=Mont Pelerin Society Past Presidents|url=https://www.montpelerin.org/past-presidents-2/|access-date=September 4, 2018|publisher=[[Mont Pelerin Society]]|archive-date=September 4, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180904155415/https://www.montpelerin.org/past-presidents-2/|url-status=live}}</ref> a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the [[Cato Institute]], and professor at [[George Mason University]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/meet-the-economist-behind-the-one-percents-stealth-takeover-of-america|title=Meet the Economist Behind the One Percent's Stealth Takeover of America|website=Institute for New Economic Thinking|language=en|access-date=April 25, 2020|archive-date=March 26, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190326223856/https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/meet-the-economist-behind-the-one-percents-stealth-takeover-of-america|url-status=live}}</ref>

==Early life and education==
Buchanan was born in [[Murfreesboro, Tennessee]], the eldest of the three children of James and Lila (Scott) Buchanan. His paternal grandfather, [[John P. Buchanan]], was governor of Tennessee from 1891 to 1893. According to Buchanan's 1992 memoir, when his father, James Buchanan Sr., married in 1918 and began his family he borrowed heavily to mechanize and improve the farm, including the acquisition of a herd of Jersey cattle. The Buchanan farm suffered during the 1920s{{emdash}}by the time James Buchanan Jr. was old enough to work on the farm, all the work was done either manually or with mules and horses. Buchanan described his life on the farm as "genteel poverty" with neither indoor plumbing nor electricity.<ref name="Buchanan_1992"/>{{rp|19–22}}<ref name="Schudell_20130109"/> The house did contain his grandfather's library of books on politics.<ref name="Buchanan_1992" />{{rp|19–22}} Unlike in other farm families where children regularly stayed home to help as farm labor, his mother insisted he never miss a day of school.<ref name="Buchanan_1992"/>{{rp|5}} While completing his first university degree in 1940 at [[Middle Tennessee State College|Middle Tennessee State Teachers College]] he continued to live at home and work on the farm. In 1941 he completed his [[Master of Science|M.S.]] at the [[University of Tennessee]].

==World War II==
Buchanan attended the [[United States Naval Reserve Midshipmen's School]] in New York starting in September 1941. He was assigned to [[Honolulu|Honolulu, Hawaii]] in March 1942, where he served as an officer on Admiral [[Chester W. Nimitz]]'s operations planning staff in the [[United States Navy]].

Buchanan attributed his dislike of what he considered "Eastern elites" to his six months of Navy officer training in New York in 1941.<ref name="Buchanan_2007" group="Works"/>{{rp|49}} He believed that there was overt discrimination against young men from the South or West in favor of those who had attended what he called establishment universities in the Northeast. In a 2011 interview, Buchanan said that out of twenty "boys from the establishment universities, 12 or 13 were picked against a background of a total of 600 [men]."<ref name="Horn_2011">{{cite book |first=Karen Ilse |last=Horn |title=Roads to Wisdom: Conversations with Ten Nobel Laureates in Economics |location=Cheltenham, UK |publisher=Edward Elgar |date=2009|pages= 369 |isbn=978-1-84844-694-6}}</ref>{{rp|94–95}} He was completing his last month of training in New York during the December 7, 1941 [[attack on Pearl Harbor]].<ref name="Buchanan_2007" group="Works"/>{{rp|50}} Buchanan said that "in balance" his work in operations planning during the war was "easy."<ref name="Buchanan_2007" group="Works"/>{{rp|67}} He was discharged in November 1945.<ref name="Buchanan_2007"group="Works"/>{{rp|48}}

==Education==

With the support of his wife, Ann Bakke, and the generous [[G.I. Bill]] education subsidy available to war veterans, Buchanan applied to graduate school.<ref name="Buchanan_1992"/>{{rp|4}} In his 1992 autobiography, Buchanan said that when he began his graduate studies in 1945 at the [[University of Chicago]], he was unaware of how market-oriented the [[Chicago school of economics]] was. He stated that he was essentially socialist until he enrolled in a course taught by [[Frank Knight]]. Knight, who also taught leading economic thinkers such as [[Milton Friedman]] and [[George Stigler]] at the University of Chicago, was a founding member of the [[Mont Pelerin Society]].<ref name="MPS_Hayek">{{Cite web | title = F.A. Hayek | work = Mont Pelerin Society (MPS) | access-date = April 4, 2022 | url = https://www.montpelerin.org/f-a-hayek/ | archive-date = February 14, 2016 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160214110311/https://www.montpelerin.org/f-a-hayek/ | url-status = dead }}</ref> Within six weeks of starting his studies, Buchanan said he was "converted into a zealous advocate of the market order".<ref name="Buchanan_2007" group="Works">{{Cite book | publisher = [[Texas A&M University Press]] | isbn = 978-1-58544-603-2| last = Buchanan| first = James M.| title = Economics from the Outside in: "Better Than Plowing" and Beyond| date = 2007 |orig-date=1992}}</ref><ref name="Buchanan_1992" >{{Cite book | publisher = University of Chicago Press | isbn =0226078167 |oclc=24953375  | last = Buchanan| first = James M.| title =  Better than plowing, and other personal essays | date = 1992 |pages=184}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://econjwatch.org/ancillary/IPEL.html|title=Ideological Profiles of the Economics Laureates|work=Econ Journal Watch|access-date=February 17, 2016|archive-date=August 9, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200809084612/https://econjwatch.org/ancillary/IPEL.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Knight became Buchanan's "de facto" PhD supervisor,<ref name="Wagner_20201101">{{Cite web| publisher = Social Science Research Network| last = Wagner| first = Richard E.| title = Frank Knight, James Buchanan, and Classical Political Economy: The Long Shadow of 'Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit'| location = Rochester, NY| access-date = April 4, 2022 | date = November 1, 2020 | ssrn = 3722977| url = https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=3722977}}</ref> and his 1948 dissertation, "Fiscal Equity in a Federal State", was heavily influenced by Knight. Buchanan did not consider himself as belonging to the Austrian or the Chicago schools of economics. But he was a member of the Mont Pelerin Society, and served as its president from 1984 to 1986 just before he received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. He did share many of their common beliefs.<ref name=Baird>{{cite web|url=http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/cato-journal/1989/5/cj9n1-10.pdf|title=James Buchanan and the Austrians: The Common Ground|author=Charles W. Baird|website=Object.cato.org|access-date=July 15, 2017|archive-date=March 4, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304033116/http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/cato-journal/1989/5/cj9n1-10.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> As Buchanan puts it: "I certainly have a great deal of affinity with Austrian economics and I have no objections to being called an Austrian. [[Friedrich Hayek]] and [[Ludwig von Mises]] might consider me an Austrian but, surely some of the others would not." Buchanan went on to say that: "I didn't become acquainted with Mises until I wrote an article on individual choice and voting in the market in 1954. After I had finished the first draft I went back to see what Mises had said in ''Human Action''. I found out, amazingly, that he had come closer to saying what I was trying to say than anybody else."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://mises.org/journals/aen/aen9_1_1.asp |title=An Interview with James Buchanan |website=Mises.org |publisher=[[Ludwig von Mises Institute]] |date=July 30, 2014 |access-date=July 15, 2017 |archive-date=September 14, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140914022018/https://mises.org/journals/aen/aen9_1_1.asp |url-status=live }}</ref>

It was also at Chicago that he first read and found enlightening the work of Swedish economist [[Knut Wicksell]].<ref name="McFadden_20130109">{{cite web | issn = 0362-4331| url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/10/business/economy/james-m-buchanan-economic-scholar-dies-at-93.html?_r=0 | title=James M. Buchanan, Economic Scholar and Nobel Laureate, Dies at 93 | work=[[The New York Times]] | date=January 9, 2013 | access-date=August 25, 2016 | last=McFadden |first=Robert D. | archive-date=June 14, 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200614233142/https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/10/business/economy/james-m-buchanan-economic-scholar-dies-at-93.html?_r=0 | url-status=live }}</ref> Photographs of Knight and Wicksell hung on his office walls ever after.

==Academic career==
After completing his PhD in 1948, Buchanan taught at the [[University of Tennessee]] as associate professor and later full professor from 1948 until 1951.<ref name="Buchanan_CV">{{Cite web| title = Vita for Dr. James M. Buchanan| access-date = April 4, 2022| url = http://publicchoice.info/Buchanan/files/bibliography.html| archive-date = June 28, 2015| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150628200326/http://publicchoice.info/Buchanan/files/bibliography.html| url-status = live}}</ref> He was a professor of economics at [[Florida State University]] from 1951 until 1956 and served for two years as the department chair. From 1955 to 1956 he was a [[U.S.-Italy Fulbright Commission|Fulbright Scholar]] in Italy.

He taught at the [[University of Virginia]] from 1956 to 1968, [[UCLA]] from 1968 to 1969, and [[Virginia Tech]] from 1969 to 1983, where he held the title Distinguished Professor of Economics. In 1998, Buchanan returned to Virginia Tech as a Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Economics and Philosophy where he contributed in organizing and providing funds for workshops, symposium, and lectures, including the annual James M. Buchanan lectures.<ref>{{Cite web |title=About |url=https://econ.vt.edu/content/econ_vt_edu/en/about.html |access-date=April 6, 2022 |work=Virginia Tech}}</ref>

In 1983 he became a professor at [[George Mason University]] where he remained until his retirement, after which he continued with emeritus status.<ref name="Mitchell1988">{{cite journal |last=Mitchell |first=William C. |year=1988 |title=Virginia, Rochester, and Bloomington: Twenty-Five Years of Public Choice and Political Science |journal=Public Choice |volume=56 |issue=2 |pages=101–119 |doi=10.1007/BF00115751 |s2cid=153671519}}</ref>

==Professional organizations==
===Thomas Jefferson Center for Studies in Political Economy===
In 1956 Buchanan and [[G. Warren Nutter]] approached the president of the University of Virginia to discuss the creation of a new school within the university, "The Jefferson Center for Studies in Political Economy and Social Philosophy".<ref name="Munger_20170629"/> Nutter, who studied under Friedman and Knight at the University of Chicago in the late 1940s, was working at that time under the sponsorship of the Brookings Institution's National Bureau of Economic Research (INBR) on his 1962 book ''The Growth of Industrial Production in the Soviet Union''.<ref name="Nutter_1969">{{cite book| publisher = World Publishing Company| last1 = Nutter| first1 = G. Warren| series = Principles of Freedom Committee| title = The strange world of Ivan Ivanov| location = New York| date = 1969 |oclc=589727286 |pages=144}}</ref> It was [[Thomas Jefferson]] who founded the University of Virginia in 1819 in [[Charlottesville, Virginia]] as a public research university. The next year the school was founded<ref name=" Thuresson">{{Cite web| publisher = George Mason University (GMU)| title = About the Center| work = The Center for Study of Public Choice| access-date = April 5, 2022| url = https://publicchoice.gmu.edu/about| archive-date = March 25, 2022| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220325084243/https://publicchoice.gmu.edu/about| url-status = live}}</ref><ref name="Tullock_2004">{{Cite book |last=Tullock |first=Gordon |editor-last=Rowley |editor-first=Charles K. |title=Virginia Political Economy |access-date=April 5, 2022 |publisher=[[Liberty Fund]] |url=https://www.libertyfund.org/books/virginia-political-economy/ |date=2004 |pages=450 |volume=1 |isbn=978-0-86597-520-0 |archive-date=January 31, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220131001844/https://www.libertyfund.org/books/virginia-political-economy/ |url-status=live }}</ref> with the intention of preserving a "social order built on individual liberty, and . . . as an educational undertaking in which students will be encouraged to view the organizational problems of society as a fusion of technical and philosophical issues."<ref name="Munger_20170629"/><ref name="TJCenter_1959">{{citation |title=Working Papers for Internal Discussion Only—General Aims |date=1959  |location=Charlottesville, Virginia |series=Special Collections, University of Virginia Library}}</ref><ref name="Nutter_1969"/>

One of the center's early publications that reached a wider audience was a 1959 report Buchanan co-authored with Nutter, "The Economics of Universal Education".<ref name="Buchanan_Nutter_1959" group="Works">{{cite report |title=The Economics of Universal Education (unpublished monograph)|last1=Buchanan |first1=James M. |last2=Nutter |first2=G. Warren |date=1959 |work=Thomas Jefferson Center for Studies in Political Economy |series=Buchanan House Archives |location=[[Lancaster, Pennsylvania]]}}</ref><ref name="Hershman_20201109">{{Cite magazine| last1 = Hershman| first1 = James H. Jr.| title = James M. Buchanan, Segregation, and Virginia's Massive Resistance| magazine = Institute for New Economic Thinking| access-date = April 8, 2022| date = November 9, 2020| url = https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/james-m-buchanan-segregation-and-virginias-massive-resistance| archive-date = May 25, 2022| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220525093359/https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/james-m-buchanan-segregation-and-virginias-massive-resistance| url-status = live}}</ref><ref name="Levy_Peart_2020">{{Cite book| publisher = Cambridge University Press| isbn = 978-1-108-42897-2| pages = 93–138| editor-last1=Levy |editor-first1 = David M. |editor-first2=Sandra J. |editor-last2=Peart| title = Towards an Economics of Natural Equals: A Documentary History of the Early Virginia School| chapter = 'The Economics of Universal Education' and After: From Friedman to Rawls| location = Cambridge| access-date = April 11, 2022 | date = 2020| doi = 10.1017/9781108571661.005| s2cid = 241726550| url = https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/towards-an-economics-of-natural-equals/economics-of-universal-education-and-after-from-friedman-to-rawls/7A57C4A4E3E5794A99472B6859742DEA}}</ref> In it they wrote that the, "case for universal education is self-evident: a democracy cannot function without an informed and educated citizenry. . . . If education is to be universal, compulsion must be exercised by government—that is, by the collective organ of society—since some parents might choose to keep their children out of school. For similar reasons, minimum standards of education must be determined by government. Otherwise, the requirement of education is empty and meaningless."<ref name="Buchanan_Nutter_1959" group="Works"/><ref name="Munger_20170629"/> Buchanan was not against "state participation in education" although he strongly opposed " state monopoly of education".<ref name="Munger_20170629"/>

Its publication provided the center and its authors, their first opportunity to be involved in a major public policy issue related to constitutional reform.<ref name="Hershman_20201109"/> A March 12, 1959 ''Charlottesville Daily Progress'' editorial called for reform of Virginia's constitution that would recognize "both the need for universal education and the right of the individual to freedom of choice in the education of his children." Georgetown University historian, James H. Hershman, said the wording seems to be from "The Economics of Universal Education".<ref name="Hershman_20201109"/> In a 2017 CATO Institute's Libertarianism.org podcast, Richard E. Wagner, who studied under Buchanan in the 1960s and maintained a 50-year friendship with him, said that Buchanan was an "egalitarian" and had no objection to the 1954 [[Brown v. Board of Education]] [[Supreme Court of the United States|U.S. Supreme Court]] decision that introduced desegregation in [[Public school (government funded)|public schools]].<ref name="FreeThoughts_20171005">{{Cite AV media | series = Free Thoughts | people = Trevor Burrus and Aaron Ross Powell (hosts), Richard E. Wagner (Department of Economics; George Mason University, Mercatus Center) | title = The Real James Buchanan | access-date = April 8, 2022 | date = October 5, 2017 | time =  | url = https://www.libertarianism.org/media/free-thoughts/real-james-buchanan | publisher = CATO institute Libertarianism.org | archive-date = May 22, 2022 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220522051321/https://www.libertarianism.org/media/free-thoughts/real-james-buchanan | url-status = live }}</ref> Wagner said that while Buchanan opposed segregated schools at the time, he also believed in decentralization and parental and student choice within a liberal orientation of people being able to develop their talents and abilities. Hershman wrote the ''[[Encyclopedia Virginia]]'''s "Massive Resistance" article,<ref name="Massive_Resistance">{{Cite encyclopedia| title = Massive Resistance| encyclopedia = Encyclopedia Virginia| access-date = April 8, 2022| url = https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/massive-resistance/| archive-date = April 9, 2022| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220409013755/https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/massive-resistance/| url-status = live}}</ref>' and his 1978 PhD dissertation was on the [[massive resistance]] strategy{{emdash}}a Virginia state government strategy adopted in 1956 to block the desegregation of public schools led by [[Harry F. Byrd Sr.]], who coined the term.<ref name="Hershman_1978">{{Cite thesis | type=PhD | publisher = University of Virginia| last = Hershman| first = James Howard| title = A rumbling in the museum : the opponents of Virginia's massive resistance| access-date = April 8, 2022 | date = January 1, 1978 | url = https://libraetd.lib.virginia.edu/public_view/pz50gw173}}</ref> In a 2020 article, Hershman examined Buchanan's actions in the spring of 1959 within the context of the massive resistance policy.<ref name="Hershman_20201109"/> By the time Buchanan became involved, there was already a groundswell of protests against desegregation based on constitutional arguments, states' rights, and even some arguments from the Chicago school of economics. The Virginia school crisis offered Buchanan a "major opportunity" of promoting "libertarian economic and social ideas."<ref name="Hershman_20201109"/> The Buchanan and Nutter report proved most useful just before an April 16, 1959, public hearing on a proposed constitutional change. In order to counter the argument that a "private system was unfeasible and that any weakening of public education would damage the state's economy overall and discourage new industries from coming to Virginia", supporters asked Buchanan and Nutter to write a shorter summary of their February report. They published two articles on the report in the Richmond ''Times-Dispatch'' on April 12 and 13.<ref name="Hershman_20201109"/> While Buchanan's personal views on race were beside the point, according to Hershman, the "massive resistance private school initiative" had provided an "opportunity to "create a functioning alternative to the existing public system", to "promote his libertarian education doctrines, as an example to showcase those ideas". Hershman wrote that it did not seem to concern Buchanan that the libertarian doctrines would perpetuate segregation. Buchanan was on the wrong side of history. The school crisis brought in a power shift in the state of Virginia from a "rural, courthouse elite to that of an urban, business elite".<ref name="Hershman_20201109"/>

In later years, Buchanan no longer held the same ideas on school vouchers as those expressed in the 1959 report. He cautioned in a 1984 letter to the [[Institute for Economic Affairs]]' [[Arthur Seldon]] that a state-sponsored unregulated voucher system from tax revenues to avoid the "evils of state monopoly" of the education system, could have the unintended consequence of the "evils of race-class-cultural segregation."<ref name="Buchanan_1982" group="Works">{{citation |title=James Buchanan to Arthur Seldon |date=1984 |series=Archive: Vouchers . . . Correspondence Buchanan Box 162.2 |work=[[Institute for Economic Affairs]] via [[Hoover Institution]] |location= Stanford, California }}</ref><ref name="Munger_20170629"/> The voucher system could result in recreating the exclusive membership-only system for elites. While vouchers would ideally promote market competition while also providing benefits of "exposure to other races, classes and cultures", Buchanan warned that this may not happen in practice.<ref name="Buchanan_1982" group="Works"/><ref name="Munger_20170629"/>

==== Public Choice Society and ''Public Choice'' journal ====
With the publication of ''The Calculus of Consent'' in 1962 and [[Mancur Olson]]'s ''[[Logic of Collective Action]]'' in 1965,<ref name="Olsen_1965">{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/logicofcollectiv00olso_0 |title=The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups |date=1965 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=0-674-53751-3 |location=Cambridge, MA}}</ref> there was growing interest in public choice theory. Tullock and Buchanan applied for and received a [[National Science Foundation]] grant to organize a preliminary research meeting in Charlottesville in 1963 with about twenty people from economics, philosophy, and political science including Olson, [[William H. Riker]], [[Vincent Ostrom]], [[Anthony Downs]], [[Duncan Black]], [[Roland McKean]], [[Jerome Rothenberg]], and [[John Rawls]] (author of the influential 1971 ''[[A Theory of Justice]]'').<ref>{{Cite book |last=Will |first=Kymlicka |url=https://archive.org/details/contemporarypoli00kyml_0/page/11 |title=Contemporary political philosophy : an introduction |date=1990 |publisher=Clarendon Press |isbn=978-0198277248 |location=Oxford |oclc=21762535}}</ref> They created a Committee for the Study of Non-Market Decision Making, which later became the Public Choice Society. They wanted to focus on how choices and "decisions were made outside of a private market context".<ref name="minneapolisfed_1995" /> As a follow-up, they launched a journal with Tullock as editor called ''[[Papers on Non-Market Decision Making|Papers on Non-market Decision Making]]''. Tullock remained as editor until 1990. They had several follow-up meetings, including one in Chicago in 1967. Members were dissatisfied with the title and it was changed to ''Public Choice''.<ref name="minneapolisfed_1995" />

==== Virginia school of political economy ====
{{main|Virginia school of political economy}}
Buchanan remained at the University of Virginia until 1968. The work of Buchanan, Nutter, and other colleagues including Tullock, Stigler, [[Ronald Coase]], [[Alexandre Kafka]], and [[Leland B. Yeager]] later came to be seen as the start of the [[Virginia school of political economy]] as separate from the Chicago school of economics.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Breit |first=William |date=October 1, 1987 |title=Creating the "Virginia School": Charlottesville as an Academic Environment in the 1960s |url=https://www.proquest.com/openview/33fe704c4a8b36511d817b6b4a088cb5/ |journal=[[Economic Inquiry]] |volume=25 |issue=4 |pages=645–657 |doi=10.1111/j.1465-7295.1987.tb00766.x |via=ProQuest |access-date=April 11, 2023 |archive-date=March 28, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230328200433/https://www.proquest.com/openview/33fe704c4a8b36511d817b6b4a088cb5/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Buchanan stated that Mancur Olson came up with the term some time after the Center for Study of Public Choice was founded at Virginia Tech.<ref name="minneapolisfed_1995" /> In a 1997 interview with ''[[Reason (magazine)|Reason]]'', Coase discussed the atmosphere in the university's economics department in the 1960s, in which he and Buchanan, Tullock, and Nutter felt that their work was considered to be "disreputable" and they were considered to be "right-wing extremists." Coase stated that he believed there was general suspicion towards anyone who supported an unregulated free market at that time.<ref name="Hazlett_19970101">{{Cite news| last = Hazlett| first = Thomas W.| title = Looking for Results: An Interview with Ronald Coase| work = Reason| access-date = April 6, 2022| date = January 1, 1997| url = https://reason.com/1997/01/01/looking-for-results/| archive-date = October 3, 2020| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20201003055834/https://reason.com/1997/01/01/looking-for-results/| url-status = live}}</ref>

===Center for Study of Public Choice===
In 1969, Buchanan, Tullock, and Charles J. Goetz established the Center for Study of Public Choice at [[Virginia Tech|Virginia Polytechnic Institute]] (VPI) in [[Blacksburg, Virginia]] with Buchanan as its first director.

In 1983, Buchanan relocated the entire Center for Study of Public Choice unit, which included its seven faculty members to George Mason University (GMU) in [[Fairfax, Virginia]].<ref name="Mitchell1988" /> Buchanan complained to then-GMU economics department chair Karen Vaughn that VPI was losing its status as unique center for public choice.<ref name="Vaughn_20150601">{{Cite journal |last=Vaughn |first=Karen |date=June 1, 2015 |title=How James Buchanan came to George Mason University |journal=[[Journal of Private Enterprise]] |volume=30 |pages=103–109 |issn=0890-913X |number=2}}</ref> Buchanan was offered an annual salary of over $100,000 at George Mason,<ref name="SCPB_AR_1985" />{{rp|27}} At the time, George Mason was a relatively unknown state university, having just gained independent status from the University of Virginia in 1972.<ref name="Vaughn_20150601" /> Buchanan was drawn to GMU's leadership.<ref name="SCPB_AR_1985">{{cite report |title=Center for Study of Public Choice Annual Report (1985)|series=Annual report |number=T151381398 |pages=43}}</ref>{{rp|27}} Vaughn stated that she believed the addition of the Center contributed to GMU's rapid growth.<ref name="Vaughn_20150601" /> Over the next decades, GMU became the largest public university in Virginia.<ref name="Barakat_20180430">{{Cite news |last=Barakat |first=Matthew |date=April 30, 2018 |title=Documents show ties between university, conservative donors |work=AP NEWS |location=Fairfax, Virginia |url=https://apnews.com/article/0c87e4318bcc4eb9b8e69f9f54c7b889 |access-date=April 7, 2022 |archive-date=April 7, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220407185323/https://apnews.com/article/0c87e4318bcc4eb9b8e69f9f54c7b889 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Economist [[James C. Miller III]], who served as chairman of the [[Federal Trade Commission]] (FTC) and as [[United States Office of Management and Budget|Budget Director]] for then-US president [[Ronald Reagan]] consulted with Buchanan, Tullock, and Tollison at the center.<ref name="Vaughn_20150601"/>{{rp|25}} From 1998 to 2002 the Center functioned as part of James M. Buchanan Center for Political Economy.<ref>{{Cite web |date=February 17, 2003 |title=About the James Buchanan Center |url=http://www.gmu.edu/jbc/about/about.html |access-date=March 28, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030217174830/http://www.gmu.edu/jbc/about/about.html |archive-date=February 17, 2003 }}</ref>

===Other activities and associations===
Buchanan was associated with the Indianapolis-headquartered [[Liberty Fund]], a [[Free market|free-market]] [[think tank]] which was founded in 1960 by [[Pierre F. Goodrich]]. Goodrich became a member of the Mont Pelerin Society in 1953 and had formed friendships with Hayek, Mises, Friedman and others. The Liberty Fund hosted conferences and symposiums on Buchanan's economic policy, liberalism and liberty.<ref name="Lee_2012" />{{rp|162}} The entire collection of his publications are hosted on the Online Library of Liberty (OLL) site. The Liberty Fund also published ''The Collected Works of James Buchanan''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan in 20 vols. {{!}} Online Library of Liberty |url=https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/tollison-the-collected-works-of-james-m-buchanan-in-20-vols |access-date=March 28, 2023 |website=oll.libertyfund.org |language=en |archive-date=March 28, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230328204408/https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/tollison-the-collected-works-of-james-m-buchanan-in-20-vols |url-status=live }}</ref>

==Major research themes==

Buchanan broad themes include [[public finance]] then [[public goods]], public choice, and public philosophy.<ref name="Forman_1989">{{Cite book| publisher = Springer Netherlands| isbn = 978-94-009-0901-4| pages = 1–30| editor-first = Frank |editor-last=Forman | title = The Metaphysics of Liberty| chapter = James McGill Buchanan and Individualism| location = Dordrecht| access-date = April 8, 2022 | date = 1989| doi = 10.1007/978-94-009-0901-4_1| chapter-url = https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-0901-4_1}}</ref> In the late 1940s and 1950s he investigated voting and other topics not usually studied in economics.<ref name="Buchanan_1992"/>{{rp|90}} Buchanan began to break from "disciplinary constraints" and examine problems from other disciplines such as political science.<ref name="Grandjean_20210301">{{Cite journal| doi = 10.4000/oeconomia.10780| issn = 2113-5207| issue = 11–1| pages = 49–76| last = Grandjean| first = Julien| title = James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock on the Weaknesses of Majority Voting: A Triptych| journal = Œconomia. History, Methodology, Philosophy| access-date = April 5, 2022| date = March 1, 2021| s2cid = 238043786| url = https://journals.openedition.org/oeconomia/10780| doi-access = free| archive-date = April 6, 2022| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220406022719/https://journals.openedition.org/oeconomia/10780| url-status = live}}</ref>

In 1948, Buchanan first read the Swedish economist, Wicksell's ''Finanztheoretische Untersuchungen'' 1896 essay, "A New Principle of Just Taxation." He translated it from German and in his 1986 Nobel Prize lecture Buchanan said that Wicksell was an "important precursor of modern public-choice theory."had informed his own concept of unanimity-voting.<ref name="Buchanan_NobelLecture_19861208"  group="Works">{{Cite web| last = Buchanan| first = James M.| series = The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel| title = The Constitution of Economic Policy| date = December 8, 1986| work = Nobel Prize| access-date = April 3, 2022| url = https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1986/buchanan/lecture/| archive-date = May 31, 2013| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20130531054304/http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/1986/buchanan-lecture.html| url-status = live}}</ref><ref name="NobelPrize1986"/> Wicksell investigated a mechanism for voting how public goods could be financed in order to ensure that the tax burden was fairly distributed.<ref name="Buchanan_Tullock_1962" group="Works"/><ref name="Johnson_2006">{{Cite journal| doi = 10.1080/10427710500509755| volume = 28| pages = 57–79| last = Johnson| first = Marianne| title = The Wicksellian Unanimity Rule: The Competing Interpretations of Buchanan and Musgrave| journal = Journal of the History of Economic Thought| date = February 1, 2006| s2cid = 154281229}}</ref><ref name="Blankart_1998"/><ref name="NobelPrize1986"/> Wicksell applied the [[benefit principle]] to taxation.<ref name="Buchanan_NobelLecture_19861208" group="Works"/> By using the mechanism of unanimity-voting, everyone involved would have a guarantee of receiving "benefits commensurate to their tax cost from any public good". Wicksell said that no would be able to complain if he were able to receive "a benefit which he himself considers to be (greater or at least) as great as the price he has to pay".<ref name="Johnson_2006"/>

Buchanan said that his 1949 paper, "The Pure Theory of Government Finance: A Suggested Approach" published in the [[Journal of Political Economy]]<ref name="Buchanan_1949" group="Works">{{Cite journal| issn = 0022-3808| volume = 57| issue = 6| pages = 496–505| last = Buchanan| first = James M.| title = The Pure Theory of Government Finance: A Suggested Approach| journal = Journal of Political Economy| access-date = April 3, 2022| date = 1949| doi = 10.1086/256880| url = https://www.jstor.org/stable/1826554| jstor = 1826554| s2cid = 154436270| archive-date = April 3, 2022| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220403224248/https://www.jstor.org/stable/1826554| url-status = live}}</ref> he was influenced by Wicksell. to improve the rules and structure of politics, and particularly to recognize that politicians behave like most people, according to their own self-interests.<ref name="minneapolisfed_1995">{{Cite web | title = Interview with James Buchanan | work = Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis | access-date = April 10, 2022 | url = https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/1995/interview-with-james-buchanan | date = 1995 | archive-date = April 27, 2022 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220427070219/https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/1995/interview-with-james-buchanan | url-status = live }}</ref> It was a way of thinking about politics that was based on common sense reality, not romanticism. In that paper he called on economists to clarify their own assumptions about politics and to think about their political models before talking about "good taxation" and "good spending."<ref name="minneapolisfed_1995"/> "The Pure Theory of Government Finance: A Suggested Approach" published in the [[Journal of Political Economy]]<ref name="Buchanan_1949" group="Works"/> It contained core ideas that Buchanan continued to develop over his career which spanned six decades, according to his biographer [[Richard E. Wagner]].<ref name="Wagner_20170523">{{Cite book| publisher = Lexington Books| isbn = 978-1-4985-3907-4| last = Wagner| first = Richard E.| title = James M. Buchanan and Liberal Political Economy: A Rational Reconstruction| date = May 23, 2017 }}</ref><ref name="Boudreaux_2021">{{Cite book| publisher = Fraser Institute| isbn = 978-0-88975-638-0| last1 = Boudreaux| first1 = Donald J| last2 = Holcombe| first2 = Randall G| title = The Essential James Buchanan| access-date = April 3, 2022 | date = 2021| url = https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/essential-james-buchanan.pdf }}</ref> In his 1989 address on Buchanan's contributions, Tony Atkinson said that it "reads like a manifesto for his life's work."<ref name="Atkinson_1989"/> In it Buchanan clarified that the democratic state is not a single decision-making unit as in a monarchy. In democratic societies, the state can only represent the collective will of the sum of its individual members.<ref name="Atkinson_1989"/>

His 1950 article, "Federalism and Fiscal Equity"<ref name="Buchanan_195009" group="Works">{{cite journal |last=Buchanan |first=James M. |date=September 1950 |title=Federalism and Fiscal Equity |journal=[[American Economic Review]] |volume=40 |pages=583–599}}</ref>{{emdash}}reprinted in [[Richard A. Musgrave]] 1959 ''Readings in the economics of taxation''<ref name="Buchanan_Musgrave_1950" group="Works">{{cite book |last=Buchanan |first=James M. |orig-date=September 1950 |chapter=Federalism and Fiscal Equity |publisher = R.D. Irwin; American Economic Association| editor-last1 = Musgrave| editor-first1 = Richard A.| editor-last2 = Shoup| editor-first2 = Carl S.| title = Readings in the economics of taxation| location = Homewood, Ill.| date = 1959}}</ref>{{emdash}}was described as a "pioneering" paper by Musgrave. During the [[recession of 1960–1961]], Buchanan and Musgrave served on a [[Brookings Institution]]'s National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) advisory committee on the needs, sources, and utilization of public finances.<ref name="NBER_Public_Finances_1961">{{cite book |url=https://www.nber.org/system/files/chapters/c2274/c2274.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220410204554/https://www.nber.org/system/files/chapters/c2274/c2274.pdf |archive-date=April 10, 2022 |date=1961 |series=Public Finances: Needs, Sources, and Utilization |isbn=0-87014-303-4 |publisher=Princeton University Press |last=Musgrave |first=Richard A. |title=Approaches to a Fiscal Theory of Political Federalism}}</ref>{{rp|97–134}} Brookings is a respected think tank that has a long history of producing influential commissioned reports for the United States government.<ref name="Britannica_Brookings">{{cite encyclopedia| title = Brookings Institution: History, Research, & Influence| encyclopedia = Britannica| access-date = April 10, 2022| url = https://www.britannica.com/topic/Brookings-Institution| archive-date = October 10, 2017| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20171010132518/https://www.britannica.com/topic/Brookings-Institution| url-status = live}}</ref> In their discussion on equity objectives of fiscal policy, Musgrave cited Buchanan's recommendation that the central fiscal policy should consider individuals, not the "states", as a matter of equity. The requirement of horizontal equity{{emdash}}the "principle that equals should be treated equally"{{emdash}} is more meaningful than that of vertical equity{{emdash}}the "requirement of differential treatment of unequals".<ref name="Buchanan_Musgrave_1950" group="Works"/><ref name="Buchanan_195009" group="Works"/>

In 1955 Buchanan spent the year in Italy reading the works of the neoclassical economist [[Maffeo Pantaleoni]] (1857 –1924) and his followers{{emdash}}[[Antonio De Viti De Marco]] and [[Vilfredo Pareto]]{{emdash}}, who are part of the Italian school of public finance theory. They are considered to be a major influence on Buchanan's work. He considered them to be among the "intellectual forefathers of the modern [[public choice theory]]".<ref name="Buchanan_2008" group="Works">{{cite encyclopedia |last= Buchanan |first= James |author-link= James M. Buchanan |editor-first= Ronald |editor-last= Hamowy |editor-link= Ronald Hamowy |encyclopedia= The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism |title= Italian Economic Theorists |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=yxNgXs3TkJYC |year= 2008 |publisher= [[SAGE Publishing|SAGE]]; [[Cato Institute]] |location= Thousand Oaks, CA |doi= 10.4135/9781412965811.n156 |isbn= 978-1-4129-6580-4 |oclc= 750831024 |lccn= 2008009151 |pages= 258–60 |quote=  |access-date= June 16, 2015 |archive-date= January 9, 2023 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20230109234738/https://books.google.com/books?id=yxNgXs3TkJYC |url-status= live }}</ref> In his ''Public Principles of Public Debt'' published in 1958, Buchanan acknowledged that "the Italian approach to the whole problem of public debt was instrumental in shaping my views".<ref name="Buchanan_1958" group="Works">{{Cite book| title = Public Principles of Public Debt: A Defense and Restatement |date=1958 | publisher= Econlib}}</ref>{{rp|vii}} rigorous analysis of the theory of [[logrolling]], macroeconomics, [[constitutional economics]], and [[libertarian theory]].<ref name="FreeThoughts_20171005"/><ref name="Wagner_Italian_influence">{{cite web |title=Public Choice and the Diffusion of Classic Italian Public Finance |first=Richard E. |last=Wagner |url=http://mason.gmu.edu/~rwagner/Diffusion%20of%20Italian%20Public%20Finance.PDF |access-date=April 9, 2022}}</ref> He was the first anglophone economist to focus on this and included their work in his chapter, "The Italian Tradition in Fiscal Theory", in his 1960 textbook ''Fiscal Theory and Political Economy''.<ref name="Buchanan_1960" group="Works">{{cite book |last=Buchanan |first=James M. |date=1960 |chapter=The Italian Tradition in Fiscal Theory |title=Fiscal Theory and Political Economy |location=Chapel Hill |publisher=University of North Carolina Press}}</ref>{{rp|24–74}} He discussed collective decision-making in [[public finance]]{{emdash}}the role of the government in the state's economy and fiscal theory.<ref name="Buchanan_1960" group="Works"/>

In the late 1940s and early 1950s as Buchanan was developing his own thoughts on the concept of the state, Kenneth Arrow published his influential 1951 monograph, ''[[Social Choice and Individual Values]]''.<ref name="Atkinson_1989"/><ref name="Arrow_1951">{{cite book |first=Kenneth J. |last=Arrow |date=1951 |title=Social Choice and Individual Values |location=New York |publisher=Wiley|isbn=0-300-01364-7}}</ref> which was the catalyst for debate on social choice. The monograph was based on ideas Arrow first developed in 1948 as a RAND Corporation intern and in his PhD dissertation in 1950 combining social ethics, voting theory and economics in his social choice theory.<ref name="Grandjean_20210301"/> Arrow examined the role of individual preferences in the process of collective decision-making regarding aggregate or group preferences, for example, in voting and establishing underlying constitutions for the common good.<ref name="Marginson_2016">{{Cite book| publisher = University of California Press| pages = 126–131| last = Marginson| first = Simon| title = The Dream Is Over| chapter = The Impossibility of Public Good| series = The Crisis of Clark Kerr's California Idea of Higher Education| access-date = April 6, 2022| date = 2016| url = https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt1kc6k1p.21| jstor = 10.1525/j.ctt1kc6k1p.21| archive-date = April 6, 2022| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220406170815/https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt1kc6k1p.21| url-status = live}}</ref> Arrow concluded that it was generally impossible to assess the "common good", for example, the design of a social welfare function through a fair ranked voting electoral system because individual preferences within the aggregate differ.<ref name="Arrow_1951"/> The paradox is the impossibility of majority voting yielding a stable result or [[pareto efficiency]] with existing rules of the game. Buchanan critiqued [[Arrow's impossibility theorem]] or Arrow's paradox. The thesis in Arrow's 1951 book that "majority rule would not give you a political equilibrium" created a lot of debate.<ref name="minneapolisfed_1995"/> Buchanan responded that his idea was anti-majoritaire{{emdash}}if that is what the preferences are, then in a democracy we ought to have a rotation, so there is not just one majority simply ruling. Most political scientists in the 1950s believed in majoritarian democracy as the ideal parliamentary model. Buchanan's ideal was more of a constitutional structure.<ref name="minneapolisfed_1995"/> Buchanan described himself as a constitutional political economist who writes from an economic point of view within a structure of American politics that aligns with James Madison's vision of the ideal democratic parliamentary model, which was not a majority democracy.<ref name="minneapolisfed_1995"/> In public choice theory, Buchanan raises concerns about minorities being exploited under permanent majorities

While in Italy on a Fulbright Scholarship in 1956 - 1957 he became aware of how his generation of Americans{{emdash}}those born in the decades after WWI{{emdash}}had a view of politics that was too romanticized. Italians took a more skeptical, realistic, and critical view of politics. When he returned to the US in 1956, he carried that skepticism with him. In 1958, Tullock took time off from his position at the U.S. Department of State that he had held since 1949, to do research at the University of Virginia focused on majority rule.<ref name="minneapolisfed_1995"/> Buchanan described Tullock as a natural realist about politics; his skepticism had increased in Washington.<ref name="minneapolisfed_1995"/>

Buchanan met Tullock, who had a law degree but no formal training in economics, when Tullock accepted a postdoctoral position at the University of Virginia in 1958.<ref name="Reisman_20150418">{{Cite book| publisher = Springer| isbn = 978-1-137-42718-2| last = Reisman| first = David| title = James Buchanan| date = April 8, 2015}}</ref> Although Tullock's PhD was in law and he had little formal training in economics, the two complemented each other; Buchanan as the philosopher and Tullock the scientist.<ref name="Grandjean_20210301"/> Together, they set out to provide an "optimal set of the political rules of the game".<ref name="Grandjean_20210301"/><ref name="Gwartney_20140901">{{Cite journal| doi = 10.1007/s10602-014-9165-z| issn = 1572-9966| volume = 25| issue = 3| pages = 265–279| last1 = Gwartney| first1 = James D.| last2 = Holcombe| first2 = Randall G.| title = Politics as exchange: the classical liberal economics and politics of James M. Buchanan| journal = Constitutional Political Economy| access-date = April 6, 2022 | date = September 1, 2014 | s2cid = 154198573| url = https://doi.org/10.1007/s10602-014-9165-z}}</ref>

In 1962, Buchanan and Tullock published ''[[Calculus of Consent|Calculus of Consent, Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy]]'', in which they first outlined public choice theory. Buchanan said he was motivated to write ''The Calculus of Consent'', because he had a sense that those who should know what democracy actually was, did not. He started to question taxation, expenditure decisions, budgets and the political process.<ref name="minneapolisfed_1995"/> In the same year Buchanan began drafts of his 1967 book, ''Public Finance in Democratic Process: Fiscal Institutions and the Individual Choice'' in which he applied ideas from pioneering ideas from the public choice school of analysis developed in ''Calculus of Consent'' to public finance.<ref name="Buchanan_PFDP_1967" group="Works"/> Buchanan received research support and assistance from the Brookings Institution for the book.<ref name="Buchanan_PFDP_1967" group="Works">{{cite book| publisher = University of North Carolina Press|oclc=652228888 | isbn = 978-0-8078-1014-9| last = Buchanan| first = James M.| title = Public Finance in Democratic Process: Fiscal Institutions and the Individual Choice| date = 1967}}</ref> In it he analyzed how individual behavior affected fiscal institutions in situations related to collective choice, for example, the relationship between income tax and the public use of economic resources.<ref name="Buchanan_PFDP_1967" group="Works"/> He said that the primary way in which individuals can make collective choices is by voting.<ref name="Buchanan_PFDP_1967" group="Works"/>{{rp|4}}

In 1967 Buchanan co-authored ''Public Debt in a Democratic Society'' with Wagner.<ref name="Buchanan_Wagner" group="Works">{{cite book| publisher = American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research| isbn = 978-0-8447-3055-4| last1 = Buchanan| first1 = James M.| last2 = Wagner| first2 = Richard E.| title = Public Debt in a Democratic Society| date = 1967}}</ref> Buchanan considered his work on public debt as an important extension of his work on public choice theory. Public choice theory examined political decision-making structures as applied to budget policy, specifically as related to fiscal deficit. Buchanan said that there was government overreach in totalitarian regimes but also in the 1960s in Western democratic welfare-state nations, such as President [[Lyndon B. Johnson]]'s ''Great Society'' programs designed to eliminate poverty and racial injustice. As more people became critical of government programs during the 1970s, in his view public choice theory provided some common sense answers, as opposed to romance. He said that he did not want to "lead the way", he wanted to provide a way for people to "interpret better what they were seeing".<ref name="minneapolisfed_1995"/> He described how politicians provide their constituents with programs that benefit them, paying for the new programs with deficit to avoid having to raise taxes to pay for them in order to remain in office. Public choice policies called for constitutional amendments to prevent the deficit from accelerating even more. In his 1986 chapter "Budgetary Bias in Post-Keynesian Politics" in ''Deficits'', he wrote, "The most elementary prediction from public choice theory is that in the absence of moral or constitutional constraints democracies will finance some share of public consumption from debt issue rather than from taxation and that, in consequence, spending rates will be higher than would accrue under budget balance."<ref name="Buchanan_1987" group="Works">{{cite book| publisher = Basil Blackwell| isbn = 978-0-631-14918-7| editor-last1 = Buchanan| editor-first1 = James M| editor-last2 = Rowley| editor-first2 = Charles K| editor-last3 = Tollison| editor-first3 = Robert D| title = Deficits| location = Oxford, UK and New York, NY| date = 1987 |orig-date=1986 |chapter=Budgetary Bias in Post-Keynesian Politics: The Erosion and Potential Replacement of Fiscal Norms}}</ref>{{rp|471}}

In 1968, Buchanan left the University of Virginia and spent a year at the [[University of California, Los Angeles]]. He published ''The Demand and Supply of Public Goods'', in which he described public finance methods using consensus politics developed by Wicksell and his student [[Erik Lindahl]] (1891 – 1960) within the framework of their concept of the ideal state. Hayek had introduced their work to anglophone economists in his 1941 ''Pure Theory of Capital'' written while he was at the [[London School of Economics]] (LSE).<ref name="Hayek_1941">{{cite book |title=Pure Theory of Capital |date=1941 |last=Hayek |first=Friedrich |url=https://mises.org/library/pure-theory-capital-0 |access-date=April 9, 2022 |archive-date=April 10, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220410045103/https://mises.org/library/pure-theory-capital-0 |url-status=live }}</ref> Buchanan traced the history of public goods theory to Wicksell and re-examined the Wicksellian unanimous solution in voting. He discussed tax shares as a variable in public finance theory and potential outcomes of public choice by majority rule. The [[Lindahl tax]] share on public goods paid by individuals is based on the marginal benefits derived from the goods{{emdash}}a system designed to maximize efficiency for the individual while also providing optimal public good. The rate or share of taxation is related to the willingness to pay. Buchanan discussed challenges to achieving a Pareto-optimal position from Lindahl's concept of public goods, such as [[free riders]].<ref name="Buchanan_1968" group="Works">{{cite book |title=The Demand and Supply of Public Goods |location=Chicago |publisher=Rand McNally and Company |date=1968}}</ref>

Buchanan's 1969 work ''Cost and Choice''<ref name="Buchanan_1969" group="Works">{{cite book |title=Cost and Choice | last = Buchanan| first = James M. |date=1969}}</ref> is often overlooked for its contributions in defining the parameters of [[opportunity cost]]. In it, he writes that the costs to individuals determine what the price of a good or service is. For example, the physical work that is required to hunt an animal as well as the price of the tools necessary to hunt it and the time spent hunting all play a factor in the price an individual places on the meat. The asking price of the meat will vary from person to person because the input costs required for each person are not the same.

In his 1964 article "What Should Economists Do?", which was based on his 1963 address to the Southern Economic Association (SEA), Buchanan distinguished between economics and politics.<ref name="Buchanan_1964"  group="Works">{{Cite journal| doi = 10.2307/1055931| issn = 0038-4038| volume = 30| issue = 3| pages = 213–222| last = Buchanan| first = James M.| title = What Should Economists Do?| journal = Southern Economic Journal| access-date = April 3, 2022| date = 1964| url = https://www.jstor.org/stable/1055931| jstor = 1055931| s2cid = 145706292| archive-date = May 24, 2023| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20230524035054/https://www.jstor.org/stable/1055931| url-status = live}}</ref> The former studies "the whole system of exchange relationships" while the latter studies "the whole system of coercive or potentially coercive relationships".<ref name="Rubin_2014">{{Cite journal| issn = 0038-4038| volume = 80| issue = 4| pages = 912–917| last = Rubin| first = Paul H.| title = Buchanan, Economics, and Politics| journal = Southern Economic Journal| access-date = April 3, 2022| date = 2014| doi = 10.4284/0038-4038-2013.303| url = https://www.jstor.org/stable/23807674| jstor = 23807674| archive-date = April 3, 2022| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220403204429/https://www.jstor.org/stable/23807674| url-status = live}}</ref> One of Buchanan's definitive statements on the re-orientation of the two academic disciplines of economics and political science was found in this 1963 SEA address.<ref name="Cachanosky_202006">{{cite journal |first1=Nicolás |last1=Cachanosky |first2=Edward J. |last2=Lopez |date=June 2020 |title=Rediscovering Buchanan's rediscovery: non-market exchange versus antiseptic allocation |url=https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/pubcho/v183y2020i3d10.1007_s11127-020-00819-0.html |journal=Public Choice |publisher=Springer |volume=183 |number=3 |pages =461–477|doi=10.1007/s11127-020-00819-0 |s2cid=219529121 }}</ref>
Buchanan told his contemporaries in the field of economics that [[Adam Smith]]'s statement in his 1776 ''[[An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations]]'' that the human "propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another" is what political economy is all about.<ref name="Cachanosky_202006"/> Economists should therefore focus on the politics of exchange not on attempting to engineer efficient allocations of resources.<ref name="Boudreaux_2021"/>

Michael Munger described three elements of Buchanan's concept of public choice theory{{emdash}}behavioural symmetry, methodological individualism, and politics as exchange, or "politics without romance".<ref name="Munger_20170629">{{Cite web| title = On the Origins and Goals of Public Choice: Constitutional Conspiracy?| first = Michael C.| last = Munger| work = The Independent Institute| access-date = April 3, 2022| date = June 29, 2017| url = https://www.independent.org/issues/article.asp?id=9115| archive-date = May 19, 2022| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220519190616/https://www.independent.org/issues/article.asp?id=9115| url-status = live}}</ref> In their article on Buchanan's politics as exchange, they described him as a classical liberal, who also incorporated [[rational choice theory]], and individual [[utility maximization]] in his analyses.<ref name="Gwartney_20140901"/> The ultimate exchange process is not based on some romantic notion of public service that Buchanan roundly rejected.<ref name="Munger_20170629"/> "Politics of exchange implies a shared exchange relationship or enterprise that is crucial as a way of "justifying political coercion of one person over another". Buchanan encouraged individuals to be skeptical about bureaucrats' and politicians' motivations and behaviour. Buchanan said that the "politics as exchange" contract on which the constitution is based precedes any economic enterprise. Trade in goods and services can only be undertaken in an orderly fashion if a legal system in already in place, one that includes limits on the powers of governments. Politics of exchange can then be described as cooperative, the contract between "nonmarket institutions and the mechanism of coercion is collective". Politics as exchange is a way of justifying coercion by providing a means for a change that is mutually beneficial, attaining [[pareto efficiency]] through cooperation, where societal improvement is possible when a change results in harming no one but helping someone.<ref name="Munger_20170629"/>

In his 1966 publication ''Public Finance in a Democratic Process''<ref name="Buchanan_1966" group="Works">{{Cite book| publisher = University of North Carolina Press| isbn = 978-0-8078-1014-9| last = Buchanan| first = James M.| title = Public Finance in Democratic Process: Fiscal Institutions and the Individual Choice| date = 1967}}</ref> Buchanan began to develop applications based on ''The Calculus of Consent'' using a multidisciplinary approach through the lens of both economics and politics .<ref name="NobelPrize1986"/>

Buchanan was largely responsible for the rebirth of political economy as a scholarly pursuit.<ref>[[Peter Boettke]], "James M. Buchanan and the Rebirth of [[Political Economy]]", in ''Against the Grain: Dissent in Economics'', ed. S. Press and R. Holt (Aldershot, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, 1998), pp. 21-39.</ref> He emphasized that public policy cannot be considered solely in terms of distribution, but is instead always a matter of setting the rules of the game that engender a pattern of [[exchange (economics)|exchange]] and [[distribution (economics)|distribution]]. His work in [[public choice theory]] is often interpreted as the quintessential instance of [[economics imperialism]];<ref>Amartya Sen, in ''Economics and Sociology'', ch. 14, Princeton: Princeton University Press. p. 263</ref> however, [[Amartya Sen]] has argued that Buchanan should not be identified with economics imperialism, since he has done more than most to introduce ethics, legal political thinking, and indeed social thinking into economics.<ref>R. Swedberg, ''Economics and Sociology: On Redefining Their Boundaries'' (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1990), p. 263.</ref> Crucial to understanding Buchanan's system of thought is the distinction he made between politics and policy. Politics is about the rules of the game, where policy is focused on strategies that players adopt within a given set of rules. "Questions about what are good rules of the game are in the domain of social philosophy, whereas questions about the strategies that players will adopt given those rules is the domain of economics, and it is the play between the rules (social philosophy) and the strategies (economics) that constitutes what Buchanan refers to as constitutional political economy".<ref>"Where Economics and Philosophy Meet: Review of ''The Elgar Companion to Economics and Philosophy'' with responses from the authors", ''The Economic Journal'', 116 (June), 2006</ref>

In his 1975 book, ''The Limits of Liberty: Between Anarchy and Leviathan'', which has been described as his ''magnum opus'', Buchanan examined the concept of a social contract.<ref name="Forman_1989"/> In ''The Limits of Liberty'' Buchanan did support some redistribution; his proposed social contract of a "productive" state includes tax-financed goods and some social insurance. He felt this would have unanimous agreement.<ref name="Buchanan_1977" group="Works">{{Cite book| publisher = University of Chicago Press| isbn = 978-0-226-07820-5| last = Buchanan| first = James M.| title = The Limits of Liberty: Between Anarchy and Leviathan| location = Chicago, IL| date = February 1977| url = https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/L/bo3625341.html}}</ref>{{rp|124}} In the summer of 1975 at a Liberty Fund conference in Ohio with most of the economists in attendance saying there should be no estate tax, Buchanan passionately disagreed. He thought that there should be a 100% marginal tax on all estates over a relatively modest amount,<ref name="Lee_2012">{{cite book|last1=Lee|first1=Dwight R.|title=Public Choice, Past and Present: The Legacy of James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock|date=December 7, 2012|publisher=Springer Science & Business Media|isbn=9781461459095|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SyK5vSJuo4sC&pg=PA162|language=en|access-date=July 3, 2017|archive-date=April 18, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210418080451/https://books.google.com/books?id=SyK5vSJuo4sC&pg=PA162|url-status=live}}</ref>{{rp|162}} to prevent an aristocracy from forming in America and to ensure equal opportunity.<ref name="SEP_neoliberalism_2021">{{Cite encyclopedia| edition = Summer 2021| publisher = Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University| editor-first = Edward N.| editor-last = Zalta| last = Vallier| first = Kevin| title = The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy| chapter = Neoliberalism| access-date = April 7, 2022| date = 2021| chapter-url = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2021/entries/neoliberalism/| archive-date = September 25, 2024| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20240925224423/https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2021/entries/neoliberalism/| url-status = live}}</ref>

Buchanan was a vocal critic of the 1994 [[David Card]] and [[Alan B. Krueger]]'s [[minimum wage]] study.<ref>{{cite journal |first1=David |last1=Card |first2=Alan B. |last2=Krueger |year=1994 |title=Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast-Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania |journal=[[American Economic Review]] |volume=84 |issue=4 |pages=772–793 |jstor=2118030 |url=https://davidcard.berkeley.edu/papers/njmin-aer.pdf |access-date=March 28, 2022 |archive-date=April 5, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220405070509/https://davidcard.berkeley.edu/papers/njmin-aer.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> Contrary to the consensus at the time, they found that "the increase in the minimum wage increased employment." In a 1996 response in the ''[[Wall Street Journal]]'', Buchanan wrote, "Just as no physicist would claim that "water runs uphill," no self-respecting economist would claim that increases in the minimum wage increase employment. [...] Fortunately, only a handful of economists are willing to throw over the teaching of two centuries; we have not yet become a bevy of camp-following whores."<ref name="Buchanan_19960405">{{cite web |url=https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/quotation-of-the-day-james-buchanan-on-the-minimum-wage |first=James M. |last=Buchanan |title=Quotation of the day |work=[[American Enterprise Institute]] (AEI) via The Wall Street Journal via |date=April 25, 1996 |access-date=March 28, 2022 |archive-date=March 28, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220328192150/https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/quotation-of-the-day-james-buchanan-on-the-minimum-wage/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Public choice theory===
Buchanan is the chief architect and the leading researcher of [[public choice theory]]<ref name="Atkinson_1989"/><ref name="Schudell_20130109"/><ref name="NobelPrize1986">{{Cite web| title = The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 1986| work = Nobel Prize| access-date = March 3, 2022| url = https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1986/press-release/| archive-date = September 25, 2024| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20240925224423/https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1986/press-release/| url-status = live}}</ref> which was first outlined in his most well-known work, ''The Calculus of Consent''.<ref name="Buchanan_Tullock_1962"  group="Works">{{Cite book| publisher = University of Michigan Press| isbn = 978-0-472-06100-6 |oclc=494115 |last1 = Buchanan| first1 = James M| last2 = Tullock| first2 = Gordon| title = The calculus of consent, logical foundations of constitutional democracy| location = Ann Arbor| date = 1962 |pages=361}}</ref> Over many decades, Buchanan developed the theoretical formulation which straddled both economics and political science and became known as "The New Political Economy" or "Public Choice" for which he was honored with the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences.<ref name="NobelPrize1986"/> [[Tony Atkinson|Sir Anthony (Tony) Atkinson]] {{Post-nominals|country=GBR|CBE|FBA|size=100%}} said that one of Buchanan's major contributions was clarifying two levels of public choice{{emdash}}the constitutional level which is where the rules of the game are set, and the postconstitutional level, where the game is played within the constitutional rules.<ref name="Atkinson_1989"/>

In ''The Calculus of Consent'', Buchanan and Tullock cited Swedish economist Knut Wicksell's standpoint on public choice in their argument for the need for unanimous agreement on constitutional rules.<ref name="Blankart_1998">{{Cite journal| issn = 0048-5829| volume = 94| issue = 3/4| pages = 355–365| last = Blankart| first = Charles B.| title = Was Knut Wicksell a Conservative or a Radical?: A Note on an Early Monograph by Knut Wicksell| journal = Public Choice| access-date = April 3, 2022| date = 1998| doi = 10.1023/A:1004907432335| url = https://www.jstor.org/stable/30024349| jstor = 30024349| s2cid = 153358039| archive-date = April 3, 2022| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220403185100/https://www.jstor.org/stable/30024349| url-status = live}}</ref> [[Tony Atkinson|Anthony Atkinson]] cited the [[Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences]] describing the significant role of Wicksell in the development of Buchanan's thinking.<ref name="Atkinson_1989">{{Cite journal| doi = 10.2307/3440481| issn = 0347-0520| volume = 89| issue = 1| pages = 5–15| last = Atkinson| first = Anthony B.| title = James M. Buchanan's Contributions to Economics| journal = The Scandinavian Journal of Economics| access-date = April 9, 2022 | date = 1987| url = http://www.jstor.org/stable/3440481| jstor = 3440481}}</ref> It was Buchanan who translated Wicksell's ''A New Principle of Just Taxation'' from German in 1958.<ref name="Atkinson_1989"/>{{rp|6}}<ref name="Buchanan_Wicksell_1958" group="Works">{{cite book |last= Wicksell |first=Knut |title=A New Principle of Just Taxation |publisher=Musgrave and Peacock |date=1958 |translator=James M. Buchanan}}</ref> Within the framework of public choice, they described the potential for [[logrolling]] as enhancing rather than reducing welfare.<ref name="Stratmann_1996">{{Cite book| publisher = Cambridge University Press| isbn = 978-0-521-55654-5| pages = 322–341| editor-first1 = Dennis C.| editor-last1 = Mueller| editor-last2 = Stratmann| editor-first2 = Thomas| title = Perspectives on Public Choice: A Handbook| chapter = Logrolling| location = Cambridge| access-date = April 4, 2022| date = 1996| doi = 10.1017/CBO9780511664458.016| url = https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/perspectives-on-public-choice/logrolling/BC4B5A55F1D23A8575521C5D0AB2D021| archive-date = June 15, 2018| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20180615093203/https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/perspectives-on-public-choice/logrolling/BC4B5A55F1D23A8575521C5D0AB2D021| url-status = live}}</ref><ref name="Buchanan_Tullock_1962" group="Works"/> Logrolling refers to politicians' vote-trading on provisions as part of an endgame of achieving their political or economic goals.

According to a 1992 journal article by George Mason University economists, [[Alexander Tabarrok]] and [[Tyler Cowen]], the precursor to Buchanan and Tullock's public choice theory is found in the work of [[John C. Calhoun]].<ref name="Tabarrok_199212">{{Cite journal | issn = 0932-4569| volume = 148| issue = 4| pages = 655–674| last1 = Tabarrok| first1 = Alexander| last2 = Cowen| first2 = Tyler| title = The Public Choice Theory of John C. Calhoun| journal = Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE) / Zeitschrift für die gesamte Staatswissenschaft| access-date = April 6, 2022 | date = December 1992| url = https://www.jstor.org/stable/40751557| jstor = 40751557}}</ref> Tabarrok, who is the director of the Center for Study of Public Choice, and Cowen, Director of the [[Mercatus Center]] and a CSPC faculty member, said that Calhoun's political philosophy writings, as developed in his 1851 ''[[A Disquisition on Government]]'',<ref name="Calhoun_1851">{{cite book |last = Calhoun |first = John Caldwell |editor-last = Cralle |editor-first = Richard K. |title = A Disquisition on Government and A Discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United States |edition = 1 |publisher = Press of Walker & James |year = 1851 |publication-place = Charleston, S.C. |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=8aM9AAAAYAAJ }}</ref> proposed the rule by unanimity to reform the constitution, which as it then existed according to Calhoun, had resulted in a form of democracy that did not sufficiently protect liberty.<ref name="Salter_20150901">{{Cite journal| doi = 10.1007/s10602-014-9183-x| issn = 1572-9966| volume = 26| issue = 3| pages = 375–390| last = Salter| first = Alexander William| title = Calhoun's concurrent majority as a generality norm| journal = Constitutional Political Economy| access-date = April 6, 2022| date = September 1, 2015| s2cid = 195068036| url = https://doi.org/10.1007/s10602-014-9183-x| archive-date = September 25, 2024| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20240925224424/https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10602-014-9183-x| url-status = live}}</ref> In his analysis of Calhoun's work through the Virginia political economy perspective, the [[Heartland Institute]]'s Alexander Salter wrote that Buchanan's project regarding generality norm is supported by Calhoun's concurrent majority developed in the ''Disquisition''.<ref name="Salter_20150901"/>

In the ''Dictionary of Economics,'' Tullock said that public choice theory applies methodologies from economics to the study of political behavior.<ref name="Tullock2008">{{cite dictionary |author=[[Gordon Tullock]] |dictionary= [[The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics]]| date=2008 |title=Public choice}}</ref> Public choice theory assumes that people are mainly guided by self-interest, including politicians, bureaucrats, and government officials.<ref name="McFadden_20130109"/> Public choice theory focuses on democratic decision-making process within the political realm. Buchanan used both fields of economics and political science to help develop his theory of public choice. The same principles used to interpret people's decisions in a market setting are applied to [[voting]], [[lobbying]], [[wikt:campaigning|campaigning]], and even candidates. Buchanan maintains that a person's first instinct is to make their decisions based upon their own self-interest, which varied from previous models where government officials acted in constituents' best interest. Buchanan explains public choice theory as "politics without romance" because, he says, many of the promises made in politics are intended to appear concerned with the interest of others, but in reality, are the products of selfish ulterior motives. According to this view, political decisions, on both sides of the voting booth, are rarely made with the intention of helping anyone but the one making the decision. Buchanan argues that the actions of voters and politicians can be predicted by analyzing their behaviors.

In the 1960s when Buchanan first began to formulate his public choice theory, he was one of the few, if not the only economist, who was critical of [[Keynesian economics]],<ref name="Higgs_20110201">{{Cite web |last=Higgs |first=Robert |title=The Economics of the Great Society: Theory, Policies, and Consequences |work=The Independent Institute |access-date=April 3, 2022 |date=February 1, 2011 |url=https://www.independent.org/publications/article.asp?id=3157 |archive-date=April 3, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220403215433/https://www.independent.org/publications/article.asp?id=3157 |url-status=live }}</ref> which had become widely accepted in the United States in the 1960s and resulted in a shift in towards governance through "macro-economic engineering".<ref name="Buchanan_1978"  group="Works">{{Cite book | publisher = Institute of Economic Affairs| isbn = 978-0-255-36110-1| last1 = Buchanan| first1 = James M.| last2 = Wagner| first2 = Richard E.| last3 = Burton| first3 = John| title = The consequences of Mr. Keynes: an analysis of the misuse of economic theory for political profiteering, with proposals for constitutional disciplines| location = London| series = Hobart papers| date = 1978}}</ref> Keynes had written his classic and influential ''[[The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money]]'' in 1938, but there was a lag between its publication and the widespread adoption of his ideas.<ref name="Buchanan_1978" group="Works"/> By 1965, ''Time'' magazine featured the phase "[[We are all Keynesians now]]" on its cover attributing it to [[Milton Friedman]]. Keynes promoted the use of [[deficit spending]] as a way to implement government programs in the wake of the [[Great Depression]] in the 1930s and [[Post-World War II]]. The 1977 book, ''Democracy in Deficit'', by Buchanan and co-author Richard Wagner was based on an analysis of Keynesian macroeconomic theory and policy in which they applied the basic tools of public choice theory for the first time. They found that there was a bias towards deficit spending that could be linked to the self-interest of the political agents involved.<ref name="Hansen_197912">{{Cite journal| doi = 10.2307/1953997| issn = 0003-0554| volume = 73| issue = 4| pages = 1123–1124| last = Hansen| first = Susan Blackall| title = Review of Democracy in Deficit by James M. Buchanan and Richard E. Wagner| journal = American Political Science Review| access-date = April 4, 2022| date = December 1979| jstor = 1953997| s2cid = 147229460| url = https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/abs/democracy-in-deficit-the-political-legacy-of-lord-keynes-by-james-m-buchanan-and-richard-e-wagner-new-york-academic-press-1977-pp-xii-195-1450/2FF3423D4C1F1F9B2A613900150FB623| archive-date = July 16, 2022| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220716011529/https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/abs/democracy-in-deficit-the-political-legacy-of-lord-keynes-by-james-m-buchanan-and-richard-e-wagner-new-york-academic-press-1977-pp-xii-195-1450/2FF3423D4C1F1F9B2A613900150FB623| url-status = live}}</ref><ref name="Buchanan_Wagner_1977"  group="Works">{{Cite book| publisher = Liberty Fund| isbn = 978-0-86597-227-8| last1 = Buchanan| first1 = James M.| last2 = Wagner| first2 = Richard E.| title = Democracy in Deficit: The Political Legacy of Lord Keynes| date = 1977}}</ref>

===Constitutionalism===
Within [[constitutionalism]], Buchanan worked on developing the field of [[constitutional economics]]. According to Buchanan, the ethic of constitutionalism is a key for constitutional order and "may be called the idealized [[Emmanuel Kant|Kant]]ian world" where the individual "who is making the ordering, along with substantially all of his fellows, adopts the moral law as a general rule for behavior".<ref name="Buchanan_199907" group="Works">{{cite book |last=Buchanan |first=James M. |title=The Logical Foundations of Constitutional Liberty |volume=1 |publisher=Liberty Fund |location=Indianapolis |date=1999}}</ref>{{rp|314}} Buchanan rejected "any organic conception of the [[State (polity)|state]] as superior in wisdom to the citizens of this state". This philosophical position forms the basis of constitutional economics.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Meadowcroft |first1=John |title=Buchanan at the American Founding: the constitutional political economy of a republic of equals and unequals |journal=[[Public Choice (journal)|Public Choice]] |date=2020 |volume=183 |issue=3 |pages=389–403 |doi=10.1007/s11127-020-00801-w |doi-access=free}}</ref> Buchanan believed that every [[constitution]] is created for at least several generations of citizens. Therefore, it must be able to balance the interests of the state, [[society]], and the individual.<ref name="Buchanan_199907" group="Works" />{{rp|372}}

There was a long history of neoliberal economists in Chile even before [[Augusto Pinochet]] [[1973 Chilean coup d'état]] that deposed [[President of Chile|President]] [[Salvador Allende]]. Through the 1970s and 1980s the Chilean economists known as the [[Chicago Boys]] who studied at the University of Chicago under Milton Friedman had applied his economic theories in their government positions in South America, including in the [[military dictatorship of Chile (1973–1990)]].<ref name="Valdés_1995">{{Cite book | last = Valdés| first = Juan Gabriel| publisher = Cambridge University Press| isbn = 978-0-521-45146-8| title = Pinochet's economists: the Chicago school in Chile| location = Cambridge| date = 1995}}</ref><ref name="Fischer_2009">{{cite book |last=Fischer |first=Karin |title=The Influence of Neoliberals in Chile before, during, and after Pinochet |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England |url=http://www.brandonkendhammer.com/politics_of_development/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Kendhammer-The-Road-from-Mont-Pelerin-1.pdf }}{{Dead link|date=August 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> The [[Chilean Constitution of 1980|Political Constitution of the Republic of Chile of 1980]] came into full force in March 1981 constitution, establishing a market-oriented model based on Chicago School and Friedman's neoliberal ideas. In Chile, Buchanan provided policy advice<ref name="Fischer_2009" /> and his constitutional political economy arguments to Pinochet.<ref name="Farrant_2019">{{Cite journal| volume = 32| issue = 1| pages = 1–20| last1 = Farrant| first1 = Andrew| last2 = Tarko| first2 = Vlad| title = James M. Buchanan's 1981 visit to Chile: Knightian democrat or defender of the 'Devil's fix'?| journal = The Review of Austrian Economics| access-date = April 5, 2022| date = 2019| doi = 10.1007/s11138-017-0410-3| s2cid = 159003961| url = https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/revaec/v32y2019i1d10.1007_s11138-017-0410-3.html| archive-date = September 25, 2024| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20240925224520/https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/revaec/v32y2019i1d10.1007_s11138-017-0410-3.html| url-status = live}} via the [[Mercatus Center]]</ref><ref name="Farrant_20190102">{{Cite journal| doi = 10.1002/soej.12323| issn = 2325-8012| volume = 85| issue = 3| pages = 691–714| last = Farrant| first = Andrew| title = What Should (Knightian) Economists Do? James M. Buchanan's 1980 Visit to Chile| journal = Southern Economic Journal| access-date = April 9, 2022| date = January 2, 2019| s2cid = 158277778| url = https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/soej.12323| archive-date = September 25, 2024| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20240925224423/https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/soej.12323| url-status = live}} via the [[Mercatus Center]]</ref> He also allegedly provided an "analytical defense of military rule to a predominantly Chilean audience."<ref name="Farrant_2019" /> Hayek also visited Chile and Pinochet that year.<ref name="Caldwell_20150901">{{Cite journal| doi = 10.1007/s11138-014-0290-8| issn = 1573-7128| volume = 28| issue = 3| pages = 261–309| last1 = Caldwell| first1 = Bruce| last2 = Montes| first2 = Leonidas| title = Friedrich Hayek and his visits to Chile| journal = [[The Review of Austrian Economics]]| access-date = April 5, 2022| date = September 1, 2015| s2cid = 189953475| url = https://doi.org/10.1007/s11138-014-0290-8| hdl = 10419/149724| hdl-access = free| archive-date = September 25, 2024| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20240925224427/https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11138-014-0290-8| url-status = live}}</ref>

==Awards==
* 1986: [[Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences]] for "development of the contractual and constitutional bases for the theory of economic and political decision making"
* 2001: Honorary doctoral degree from [[Universidad Francisco Marroquín]], in [[Guatemala City]], [[Guatemala]], for contribution to economics.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.ufm.edu/cms/es/honorary-doctoral-degrees|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110501185429/https://www.ufm.edu/cms/es/honorary-doctoral-degrees|url-status=dead|title=Honorary Doctoral Degrees at Universidad Francisco Marroquín|archive-date=May 1, 2011}}</ref>
* 2006 [[National Humanities Medal]] for his development of economic analysis of politics.<ref>{{Cite web |title=James M. Buchanan |url=https://www.neh.gov/about/awards/national-humanities-medals/james-m-buchanan |access-date=March 28, 2023 |website=The National Endowment for the Humanities |language=en |archive-date=March 30, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230330175405/https://www.neh.gov/about/awards/national-humanities-medals/james-m-buchanan |url-status=live }}</ref>

==Legacy==

Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) Honors College's Buchanan Fellowship program, named for Buchanan, is awarded to 20 first-year student at MTSU annually.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Buchanan Fellowship Information {{!}} Middle Tennessee State University|url=https://www.mtsu.edu/honors/buchanan/information.php|access-date=October 12, 2021|website=www.mtsu.edu|language=en|archive-date=September 27, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210927215831/https://mtsu.edu/honors/buchanan/information.php|url-status=dead}}</ref> Additionally, MTSU's Buchanan Family Reading Room at the [[James E. Walker Library]] was funded with a gift by Buchanan's family to honor Buchanan and the contributions of the family as a whole to the state of Tennessee.<ref>{{Cite web |last=York |first=Amy |title=Walker Library: Study Spaces and More: Reading Rooms |url=https://library.mtsu.edu/spaces/study |access-date=March 31, 2023 |website=library.mtsu.edu |language=en |archive-date=March 31, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230331184629/https://library.mtsu.edu/spaces/study |url-status=live }}</ref>

In his 2017 publication, Richard Wagner described how Buchanan's scholarship continues to influence law, ethics, political science, and economics in the 21st century.<ref name="Wagner_20170523"/>

Nicolás Cachanosky and [[Edward J. Lopez]] suggest that Buchanan's research can inform work on trade restrictions and populism in the twenty-first century.<ref name="Cachanosky_202006"/>

Buchanan is a central figure in the 2017 nonfiction book ''[[Democracy in Chains]]'' by [[Duke University]] professor and historian [[Nancy MacLean]].<ref name="Maclean_2017">{{cite book |last=MacLean |first= Nancy |orig-date=2017 |date=2018 |title=Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America |location=New York |publisher=Penguin Books |isbn=9781101980972 |oclc=1029879485 |pages= 368}}</ref> MacLean traced Buchanan's concept of power to the 1950s and 1960s. Buchanan had become concerned that the federal government was channeling too many resources to the public.<ref name="Parramore_20180530">{{Cite news| last = Parramore| first = Lynn| title = Meet the Hidden Architect Behind America's Racist Economics| work = [[Institute for New Economic Thinking]]| date = May 30, 2018| access-date = March 25, 2022| url = https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/meet-the-economist-behind-the-one-percents-stealth-takeover-of-america| archive-date = March 26, 2019| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190326223856/https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/meet-the-economist-behind-the-one-percents-stealth-takeover-of-america| url-status = live}}</ref> As he witnessed the federal government increasing its power, Buchanan sought ways to protect the wealthy from being forced to support programs that seemed to him to be a move towards socialism.<ref name="Parramore_20180530"/> MacLean described how Buchanan and other libertarians seek to protect capitalism by preventing government overreach. MacLean described Buchanan's concept of human nature as "dismal" and that he believed that politicians and government workers are motivated by self-interest and that government would continue to increase in scale and power unless there were constitutional limits in place.<ref name="Thompson_20190601">{{Cite journal |last=Thompson |first=Fred |date=June 1, 2019 |title=Nancy MacLean, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America. |url=https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&issn=01472011&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA593171762&sid=googleScholar&linkaccess=abs |journal=Society |volume=56 |issue=3 |pages=300–307 |doi=10.1007/s12115-019-00369-2 |issn=0147-2011 |s2cid=197402340 |access-date=April 2, 2022 |archive-date=September 25, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240925224929/https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&issn=01472011&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA593171762&sid=googleScholar&linkaccess=abs&userGroupName=anon%7E560dedf1&aty=open-web-entry |url-status=live }}</ref> MacLean raised concerns that Buchanan and [[Charles Koch]] mutually supported one another to the detriment of democratic participation for all. Koch provided millions in funding to libertarian university programs and Buchanan provided the intellectual arguments from political economy to place limits on democracy.<ref name="Thompson_20190601"/> MacLean's book became a catalyst for discussion online and in journals.<ref name="Fleury_2018">{{Cite journal |last1=Fleury |first1=Jean-Baptiste |last2=Marciano |first2=Alain |date=2018 |title=The Sound of Silence: A Review Essay of Nancy MacLean's Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26570579 |journal=Journal of Economic Literature |volume=56 |issue=4 |pages=1492–1537 |doi=10.1257/jel.20181502 |issn=0022-0515 |jstor=26570579 |s2cid=150159179 |access-date=April 2, 2022}}</ref> ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', ''Boston Review of Books'', and ''[[Los Angeles Review of Books]]'' gave the book positive reviews. Her critics include [[David Bernstein (law professor)|David Bernstein]] who wrote a series of ''Washington Post'' opinion pieces as part of the ''Volokh Conspiracy'' blog.<ref name="Bernstein_20170720">{{Cite news |last=Bernstein |first=David |date=July 20, 2017 |title=Did Nancy MacLean make stuff up in 'Democracy in Chains'? |newspaper=Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/07/20/did-nancy-maclean-make-stuff-up-in-democracy-in-chains/ |access-date=April 2, 2022 |issn=0190-8286 |series=Opinion |archive-date=October 9, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221009064232/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/07/20/did-nancy-maclean-make-stuff-up-in-democracy-in-chains/ |url-status=live }}</ref> In a 2018 ''[[Journal of Economic Literature]]'' review of MacLean's book, Jean-Baptiste Fleury and Alain Marciano said that MacLean misunderstood public choice theory and that she had overlooked some significant aspects of Buchanan's biography and thinking and had over-interpreted others.<ref name="Fleury_2018"/> MacLean, who spent years studying Buchanan's copious archives after his death, says that the influence of Buchanan's six decades of work on modern conservatism is not well-enough appreciated or understood by liberal politicians, economists, and journalists.<ref name="Parramore_20180530"/>

==Personal life and death==
Buchanan met Ann Bakke, who was of Norwegian descent, in Hawaii while they were both serving in the military during World War II. Bakke served with the Army Air Transport Command at [[Hickam Air Force Base|Hickam Field]] as a secretary.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Barton |first=Rachel |date=July 27, 2022 |title=Processing from the Outside In: Ann Bakke Buchanan |url=https://vault217.gmu.edu/?p=10193 |access-date=March 23, 2023 |archive-date=February 8, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230208030806/https://vault217.gmu.edu/?p=10193 |url-status=live }}</ref>

They married on October 5, 1945, in San Francisco. Ann died in 2005. They had no children.<ref name="Schudell_20130109">{{Cite news| issn = 0190-8286| last = Schudel| first = Matt| title = James Buchanan, GMU economist who won Nobel| newspaper = Washington Post| access-date = April 4, 2022| date = January 9, 2013| url = https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/james-buchanan-gmu-economist-who-won-nobel/2013/01/09/4557617e-5a86-11e2-beee-6e38f5215402_story.html| archive-date = January 20, 2021| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20210120113859/https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/james-buchanan-gmu-economist-who-won-nobel/2013/01/09/4557617e-5a86-11e2-beee-6e38f5215402_story.html| url-status = live}}</ref>

In a 1986 ''Chicago Tribune'' interview Buchanan said, "I want a private sphere in which I am protected, where nobody can invade...I don't feel the need to be a part of a community or a team." According to a ''Washington Post'' obituarist he was not known for his warm personality, and that even his "staunchest admirers admitted that he was forbidding."<ref name="Schudell_20130109"/> Even though he had a long career at George Mason University in Fairfax, Buchanan and his wife chose to spend most of their time a four-hour drive away on their 400-acre working farm near [[Blacksburg, Virginia|Blacksburg]].<ref name="McFadden_20130109"/> They had vegetable gardens and raised cattle.<ref name="Schudell_20130109"/>

Buchanan was an [[Atheist]] and antagonistic to religion.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Brennan |first1=Geoffrey |last2=Munger |first2=Michael |date=Winter 2014 |title=The Soul of James Buchanan? |url=https://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_18_03_02_brennan.pdf |journal=The Independent Review |volume=18 |issue=3 |pages=331–342 |doi= |access-date= |url-status= |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230922225212/https://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_18_03_02_brennan.pdf |archive-date=September 22, 2023}}</ref>

Buchanan died at their farm on January 9, 2013, at age 93.<ref name="McFadden_20130109"/>

''[[The New York Times]]'' obituary said that the Nobel Prize-winning economist who championed [[public choice]] theory influenced a "generation of conservative thinking about deficits, taxes and the size of government".<ref name="McFadden_20130109"/> The ''[[Badische Zeitung]]'' ([[Freiburg im Breisgau|Freiburg]]) called Buchanan, who showed how politicians undermine fair and simple tax systems, the "founder of the [[new political economy]]".<ref>{{cite news|newspaper=Badische Zeitung|date=January 9, 2013|title=Nobelpreisträger James M. Buchanan ist tot|url=http://www.badische-zeitung.de/nachrichten/wirtschaft/nobelpreistraeger-james-m-buchanan-ist-tot--68033849.html|language=de|access-date=January 9, 2013|archive-date=August 9, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200809070721/https://www.badische-zeitung.de/nachrichten/wirtschaft/nobelpreistraeger-james-m-buchanan-ist-tot--68033849.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

==Selected publications==
* ''Politics of Bureaucracy'' by Gordon Tullock, foreword by James M. Buchanan (Washington: [[Public Affairs Press]], 1965)
* ''Academia in Anarchy'' (with Nicos E. Devletoglou), 1970
* ''[[Democracy in Deficit]]'' (with [[Richard E. Wagner]]), 1977
* ''Freedom in Constitutional Contract'', 1978
* ''The Power to Tax'' (with [[Geoffrey Brennan]]), 1980
* ''The Reason of Rules'' (with Geoffrey Brennan), 1985
* ''Liberty, Market and State'', 1985
* ''Why I, Too, Am Not a Conservative: The Normative Vision of Classical Liberalism'' (Cheltenham UK: Edward Elgar), 2005

A listing of Buchanan's publications from 1949 to 1986 can be found at the [https://web.archive.org/web/20091031224313/http://www.wiley.com/bw/journal.asp?ref=0347-0520 ''Scandinavian Journal of Economics''], 1987, '''89'''(1), pp.&nbsp;17–37.

==See also==
* [[Social contract]]

==Works==
{{reflist|group ="Works"}}

==References==
{{Reflist|3}}

==Further reading==
* [[Anthony B. Atkinson|Atkinson, Anthony B.]] "James M. Buchanan's Contributions to Economics". ''Scandinavian Journal of Economics'', 1987, vol. 89, no. 1, pp.&nbsp;5–15.
* Boettke, P.J., Candela, R.A. [[doi:10.1007/s11127-020-00796-4|Where Chicago meets London: James M. Buchanan, Virginia Political Economy, and cost theory.]] Public Choice (2020).
* Boettke, P., Kroencke, J. [[doi:10.1007/s11127-020-00798-2|The real purpose of the program: a case study in James M. Buchanan's efforts at academic entrepreneurship to "save the books" in economics]]. Public Choice (2020).
* Brennan, G., Kliemt, H., and Tollison, R.D. (eds.) ''Method and Morals in Constitutional Economics: Essays in Honor of James M. Buchanan''. Berlin: Springer, 2002. {{ISBN|9783642075513}}
* Horn, Karen Ilse. "Roads to Wisdom, Conversations with Ten Nobel Laureates in Economics",94-95 Edward Elgar, 2011.
* Kasper, Sherryl. ''The Revival of Laissez-Faire in American Macroeconomic Theory: A Case Study of Its Pioneers'', Chapter 6. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2002. {{ISBN|9781840646061}}
* [[Peter Leeson|Leeson, Peter]]. "Buchanan, James M. (1919– )." ''Encyclopedia of Libertarianism'', pp.&nbsp;40–51. [[Ronald Hamowy]], ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: [[SAGE Publishing|Sage]]; [[Cato Institute]], 2008. {{ISBN|9781412965804}}
* Marciano, Alain. 2020. "[[doi:10.1002/soej.12429|Buchanan, Popular Myths, and the Social Responsibility of Economists]]." Journal of the Southern Economic Association.
* [[Nancy MacLean|MacLean, Nancy]]. ''[[Democracy in Chains|Democracy in Chains: The Deep History Of The Radical Right's Stealth Plan For America]]''. Viking Press, 2017. {{ISBN|9781101980965}}
* Meadowcroft, John. ''James M. Buchanan''. London: Continuum, 2011. {{ISBN|9781501301513}}
* Munger, M. [[doi:10.1007/s11127-020-00791-9|Moral community and moral order: Buchanan's theory of obligation]]. Public Choice (2020).
* Palda, Filip. ''A Better Kind of Violence: Chicago Political Economy, Public Choice, and the Quest for an Ultimate Theory of Power.'' Kingston: Cooper-Wolfling, 2016. {{ISBN|9780987788078}}
* Pittard, Homer. ''The First Fifty Years'', pp.&nbsp;136, 173. Murfreesboro, TN: Middle Tennessee State College, 1961.
* Reisman, David A. ''The Political Economy of James Buchanan''. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1990. {{ISBN|9780333476390}}
* Vanberg, V.J. J. M. [[doi:10.1007/s11127-020-00795-5|Buchanan's contractarian constitutionalism: political economy for democratic society.]] Public Choice (2020).

==External links==
* {{wikiquote-inline}}
* {{cite web |author= James M. Buchanan |title= The Hayek Interviews |url= https://hayek.ufm.edu/about-these-videos/ |publisher= Hosted by Universidad Francisco Marroquín |date= 1978 |accessdate= 6 October 2024}}
* {{cite book |chapter= Tape: James M. Buchanan date: October 28, 1978 |title= NOBEL-PRIZE WINNING ECONOMIST FRIEDRICH VON HAYEK: Interviewed by Earlene Craver, Axel Leijonhufvud, Leo Rosten, Jack High, James Buchanan, Robert Bork, Thomas Hazlett, Armen A. Alchian, Robert Chitester; Completed under the Auspices of the Oral History Program of University of California, Los Angeles |publisher= The Regents of the University of California |date= 1983 |chapter-url= https://archive.org/details/nobelprizewinnin00haye/page/n447/mode/2up?view=theater |pages= [https://archive.org/details/nobelprizewinnin00haye/page/n447/mode/2up?view=theater 206]-268 |via= [[Internet Archive]] |accessdate= 6 October 2024}}
* [https://aspace.gmu.edu/resources/c0246 James M. Buchanan papers], C0246, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University Libraries.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110701190224/http://economics.gmu.edu/people/jbuchananemeritus Biography at GMU]
* {{AcademicSearch|23399922}}
* [http://econjwatch.org/ancillary/IPEL.html Ideological Profile from Econ Journal Watch]
* {{C-SPAN|9270}}
* [https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/buchanan-the-collected-works-of-james-m-buchanan-vol-7-the-limits-of-liberty James M. Buchanan, The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan, vol. 7 (The Limits of Liberty: Between Anarchy and Leviathan) &#91;1975&#93;]
* [http://www.independent.org/aboutus/person_detail.asp?id=671 Member of the Board of Advisors] at [[The Independent Institute]]
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7PtoStD3RY YouTube] Reflections on the Life and Work of James Buchanan
* {{Cite encyclopedia |title=James M. Buchanan (1919–2013) |encyclopedia=[[The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics]] |edition=2nd |series=[[Library of Economics and Liberty]] |publisher=[[Liberty Fund]] |year=2013 }}
* [http://deirdremccloskey.org/articles/bv/buchanan.php 'The Hobbes Problem: From Machiavelli to Buchanan'] by [[Deirdre McCloskey]]
* {{Nobelprize|name=James M. Buchanan Jr.}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname = James McGill Buchanan | sopt=t}}
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{{s-bef | before = [[Franco Modigliani]] }}
{{s-ttl | title = [[List of Nobel Memorial Prize laureates in Economics|Laureate of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics]] | years = 1986 }}
{{s-aft | after = [[Robert M. Solow]] }}
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