James M. Buchanan, Political Regionalism, and the Southern Agrarians

Abstract

James M. Buchanan described, discussed, and rejected the regionalist proposals of Howard Odum and William Yandell Elliott in his 1948 dissertation, Fiscal Equity in a Federal State. His discussion of regionalism is of particular interest because Odum and Elliott's ideas were hotly debated by the Southern Agrarians in the 1930s and 1940s. Odum was a frequent critic of the Agrarians, while Elliott was a former colleague of the poets at Vanderbilt University. Some Agrarians, such as Frank Owsley, enthusiastically embraced Odum and Elliott's ideas. Others, such as Donald Davidson, opposed their proposals. In this note I show that Buchanan's rejection of Odum and Elliott bears a close resemblance to Davidson's own criticism. This case illustrates the complexities of Buchanan's relationship with the Agrarians, a problem first highlighted by Nancy MacLean in her intellectual biography of Buchanan, Democracy in Chains.