In Memoriam: James M. Buchanan
The tributes will be coming fast and furious in memory of the great James M. Buchanan, who died today.
As president of the Public Choice Society, my co-author Ed López can talk for hours about the contributions of this intellectual giant. For now, I will simply quote two paragraphs about Buchanan and Tullock’s contributions to political economy in general and public choice in particular, as described in Chapter 4 of our book, Madmen, Intellectuals and Academic Scribblers.
Rational self-interest motivates the butcher, the brewer, and the baker as well as the politician, the voter, and the bureaucrat. In other words, public choice begins by adopting a symmetric stance between markets and governments: People are assumed to be rationally self-interested in both settings. Only with this consistency, with this symmetric treatment, can economic science truly compare how government and market institutions perform.
But why also presuppose that rational individuals exchange in politics? Because in both the market and in politics, as Mick Jagger reminds us, you can’t always get what you want. Adam Smith says that in the market, rational individuals — the butcher, the brewer, the baker, as well as consumers — pursue their own interests and find ways to cooperate via exchange. At least, that’s what happens where there are effective rules, such as those that protect property and allow the price system to work without interference.
Buchanan and Tullock are reminding us that something similar happens in politics. The butcher, the brewer, and the bakers, as well as consumers, have different political interests. These and many more groups of what Buchanan and Tullock call “political tradesmen” have different things they want from government. In a political market based on a democratic-republican form of government, people work together to make decisions about how to allocate resources. They set tax rates, approve construction projects, hire first responders, educate children, and so on. They engage in political trade.
Like so many other scholars, Ed and I owe an enormous debt to James M. Buchanan. Thank you, sir. RIP.