James M. Buchanan, Nobel Laureate in Economics and one of the premier political economists of the 20th century, was at the heart of the emergence of public choice theory and the reintroduction of politics to academic economic analysis. Like any great and productive scholar, his body of work includes tensions, flaws, and inconsistencies that must be confronted by scholars looking to engage, critique, and advance his distinctive project in political economy. Buchanan’s work is important but also open for contestation and improvement.
Buchanan’s Tensions: Reexamining the Political Economy and Philosophy of James M. Buchanan presents a critical assessment of Buchanan’s research and ideas. The contributions to this edited volume, which include original chapters by several of Buchanan’s coauthors and students, identify sources of tension within his writing. The book’s key takeaway is that the research program Buchanan developed continues as an open-ended project, both as a social scientific approach and as a classical liberal political vision of constitutional order, rather than a static dogma or fruitless dead end. Taken as a whole, this volume identifies important questions and areas for future research by the next generation of constitutional political economists.
Table of Content
INTRODUCTION
Peter J. Boettke and Solomon Stein
1 BUCHANAN’S LIBERAL THEORY OF POLITICAL ECONOMY: A VALIANT BUT FAILED EFFORT TO SQUARE THE CIRCLE
Richard E. Wagner
2 BUCHANAN ON ETHICS AND SELF-INTEREST IN POLITICS: A CONTRADICTION OR RECONCILIATION?
Roger D. Congleton
3 CONSTITUTIONAL HOPES AND POST-CONSTITUTIONAL FEARS: THE ROLE OF RATIONAL CONSTRUCTION IN SKEPTICAL PUBLIC CHOICE
Peter J. Boettke and Jayme S. Lemke
4 CAN CONSENT LIMIT LIBERTY? AN ANALYSIS OF BUCHANAN’S CLASSICAL LIBERAL CONTRACTARIANISM
Randall G. Holcombe
5 UNREASONABLENESS AND HETEROGENEITY IN BUCHANAN’S CONSTITUTIONAL PROJECT
Stefanie Haeffele and Virgil Henry Storr
6 IT CAN’T BE RATIONAL CHOICE ALL THE WAY DOWN: COMPREHENSIVE HOBBESIANISM AND THE ORIGINS OF THE MORAL ORDER
Gerald Gaus
7 THE PROTECTIVE STATE: A GRAVE THREAT TO LIBERTY
Christopher J. Coyne
8 LIMITS ON THE APPLICATION OF MOTIVATIONAL HOMOGENEITY IN THE WORK OF BUCHANAN AND THE VIRGINIA SCHOOL
David M. Levy and Sandra J. Peart
CONTRIBUTORS
INDEX
About the author
Solomon Stein is a research fellow in the F. A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study
in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason
University.
More ebooks from the same author(s) / Editor
254,773 Ebooks in this category
