When I was an undergraduate student, the vast majority of my readings came from textbooks. For several years I looked at supply and demand graphs, calculated unemployment rates and elasticities, and answered questions about how changes in particular variables would impact inflation and economic growth according to various models. During my senior year, however, our economic…
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Among the first questions young people ask upon their political awakening is one that should concern Americans of all ages: Why don’t democratic governments operate the way our civic classes taught us? Perhaps no one of his generation thought more deeply about this question than the economist James M. Buchanan (1919–2013). The late Nobel…
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A bottle of Jack Daniels is sitting on our kitchen counter, the result of a fire in our microwave oven.  The oven was destroyed so we ordered a replacement, which was supposed to be installed a few days ago, but the installers who showed up couldn’t get the new oven into the spot where…
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James M. Buchanan toiled in the academic trenches for more than half a century, plowing vital new ground that advanced our understanding of the untamed beast that is government (and, by extension, the rascals who grasp at its reins). His passing yesterday should be a solemn occasion for all who value a free and…
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I was surprised to see James Buchanan characterized in the New York Times as “an austere man with a severe aspect that many students found intimidating.” I was never a student of his, but the James Buchanan I had the pleasure of getting to know as a guest at numerous meetings of the Mont…
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James M. Buchanan, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics in 1986 for his pioneering work that developed the field of public choice, passed away on January 9, 2013, at age 93.  Buchanan’s work has had a major influence in academic economics and beyond, and he was one of the twentieth century’s leading…
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James M. Buchanan, one of the past century’s most distinguished economists and most compelling champions of free markets, died earlier today at age 93. His professional career spanned more than sixty years, during which he wrote extensively on public finance, economic philosophy, and other topics in related areas. With Gordon Tullock, he founded a…
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The power of ideological convictions in shaping political, social, and economic life.

If Democracy in Chains represents the state of art in the research and critical thinking in Nancy MacLean’s field, History as an academic discipline is in serious intellectual trouble.

Leland Yeager, who was a valuable member of the scholarly community, passed away April 23 at the age of 93.