James M. Buchanan (1919–2013), Friend of Liberty

James A. Dorn The passing of Nobel laureate economist James M. Buchanan, one of the greatest proponents of limited government and free markets in the 20th century, leaves a giant void at a time when Western democracies are expanding the size and scope of government and threatening the future of liberty. The news of Buchanan’s death on January 9, at the age of 93, has saddened all who knew and respected him. His vast body of work, however, will live on and remind us that liberty under a just rule of law, or what F. A. Hayek called “the constitution of liberty,” is essential for the emergence of a spontaneous market order.  Like Adam Smith, Buchanan was interested in the institutions that would allow individuals to pursue their own self-interest (happiness) while benefiting others through a system of what Milton Friedman has called “free private markets.” Buchanan considered “the principle of spontaneous order”—that is, the harmony and wealth creation that emerges through voluntary exchange when government is limited and rights to life, liberty, and property safeguarded—to be “the most important central principle in economics” (see What Should Economists Do?, pp. 81–82). The question that occupied Buchanan during his long career is the problem of constitutional choice—that is, the choice of rules that would best allow individuals the freedom they need to increase their range of choices and bring about social harmony. The proper balance between th...
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