Chris Coyne
Liberty Fund's "Liberty Matters" is currently running a symposium on James Buchanan. The symposium abstract is as follows:
To commemorate the recent death of James M. Buchanan (1919-2013) on January 9 a number of scholars will discuss his considerable contribution to economic and political theory, most notably his work on "public choice" and constitutionalism. Geoffrey Brennan, who worked closely with Buchanan for many years, deals first with Buchanan’s contractarianism and then turns to his theory of constitutionalism, trying to indicate how these two c’s are related. He then attempts to connect the “constitutional contractarian” project to Buchanan’s credentials as a classical liberal and raises a number of other queries about the intellectual scheme he created, including the double role of exchange, the nature of market operations, the supply of versus the demand for rules, chosen versus inherited rules, and "expressive constitutionalism."
The lead essay by Geoffrey Brennan can be found here. Responses to Brennan's essay are provided by Viktor Vanberg and co-bloggers Pete Boettke and Steve Horwitz. Responses by Loren Lomansky and Ed Stringham will be posted shortly.
The symposium shows not only the breadth of Buchanan's research program, but also some of the potential avenues for continued research within that program.
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