The Impact of James Buchanan on My Career and the Economics Profession

Abstract

[Author Affiliation]James D Gwartney, * Gus A. Stavros Center for Economic Education, Florida State University, 250 South Woodward Avenue, Tallahassee, FL 32306-4220, USA; E-mail: jdgwartney@fsu.edu[Acknowledgment]This article was prepared for presentation at a session honoring the late James Buchanan during the 83rd annual meeting of the Southern Economic Association in Tampa, Florida. The author would like to thank Randall Holcombe and Rosemarie Fike for helpful comments and assistance.1. IntroductionIn 1967, while a graduate student at the University of Washington, I took a public finance course from Thomas Borcherding, who had recently studied under James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock as a postdoctoral fellow at the Thomas Jefferson Center at the University of Virginia. The course focused on the writings of Buchanan, Tullock, and other public choice scholars. Later that same year, Professor Buchanan visited the University of Washington and gave a special set of lectures on public choice economics and its implications for the economics profession.The theme of the Buchanan lectures was straightforward: Economic analysis can enhance our knowledge of how the political process works as well as the operation of markets. Without knowledge of how alternative forms of economic organization work, sensible choice among policy options is impossible. Moreover, if we want to improve the performance of the political process, we need to reflect on how constitutional structures and rules influence outcomes.I was a third-year graduate student at the time, but Buchanan's application of economic theory to the political as well as the market process exerted a lasting imprint on my thought process. It seemed so sensible to me that I fully expected this approach to sweep the economics profession in the years immediately ahead. After completing my doctoral degree and accepting a position at Florida State University, I was assigned teaching responsibilities in large lecture principles classes in the early 1970s. I integrated public choice analysis and the comparative approach into my classes, and the student response was highly positive. But the topic was totally absent from available principles texts. I set out to change this situation. The result was Economics: Private and Public Choice , a principles text initially published in 1976.From the very beginning, Economics: Private and Public Choice used the tools of economics to analyze markets and the political process in a symmetric manner. The following passage from the preface of the first edition (Gwartney 1976, p. xviii) highlights this point and contrasts the approach with that of other texts:Most textbooks currently do three things. They tell students how an ideal market economy would work, why real world markets differ from the hypothetical ideal, and how ideal public policy could correct the failures of the market. In addition to these three basic areas of study, this book analyzes what real world public policy is likely to do. This important step drives home both the power and relevance of modern economics.Later, the assistance of coauthors was enlisted (Gwartney et al. 2012), and the text is now in the 14th edition. Many changes have occurred, but the comparative approach embodied in the work of Jim Buchanan is still a central feature of the text.2. Buchanan and the Conceptualization of GovernmentBuchanan conceptualizes the role of government as falling into two major categories: the protective and productive functions. The protective function involves the maintenance of a set of rules designed to promote the peaceful interaction of individuals with one another. Government is assigned the responsibility of protecting individuals from the actions of those who would use force, fraud, and theft to harm or seize the person or property of others. The protective function also entails the legal enforcement of contracts, a court system for the peaceful settlement of disputes, and provision of national defense. …