Richard E. Wagner joins us for a discussion on life and thought of James M. Buchanan, who was one of the founders of public choice theory.

Show Notes and Further Reading

Wagner’s latest book is James M. Buchanan and Liberal Political Economy: A Rational Reconstruction (2017).

A good portion of what we discuss in this episode deals with Nancy MacLean’s account of Buchanan in Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America (2017).

Aaron mentions this article by Lee Fang in The Intercept, “Sphere of Influence: How American Libertarians Are Remaking Latin American Politics.” 

Buchanan and Gordon Tullock co-wrote The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy (1962), considered one of the landmark works of public choice theory.

Our other podcast episode with Wagner gives a pretty good introduction to public choice theory, but listeners may also be interested in this episode on the same topic.

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