Ever since Nancy McLean’s new book came out, there have been waves of discussions of the intellectual legacy of James Buchanan – the economist who pioneered public choice theory and won the Nobel in economics in 1986. Most prominent in the book are the inuendos of Buchanan’s racism. Basically, public choice had a “racist” agenda. Even Brad DeLong indulged in this criticism of Buchanan by pointing that he talked about race by never talking race, a move which reminds him of Lee Atwater.
The thing is that it is true that Buchanan never talked about race as DeLong himself noted. Yet, that is not a sign (in any way imaginable) of racism. The fact is that Buchanan actually inspired waves of research regarding the origins of racial discrimination and was intellectually in line with scholars who contributed to this topic.
Protecting Majorities and Minorities from Predation
To see my…
View original post 1,023 more words
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
Recent Comments