Title
Romance or No Romance? Adam Smith and David Hume in James Buchanan's "Politics Without Romance"
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2016
Abstract
Can we model politics as exclusively based on self-interest, leaving virtue aside? How much romance is there in the study of politics? We show that James Buchanan, a founder of public choice and constitutional political economy, reintroduces a modicum of romance into politics, despite claiming that his work is the study of “politics without romance”: Buchanan’s model needs an ethical attitude to defend rules against rent-seeking.
We claim that Adam Smith, more than David Hume, should be considered one of the primary intellectual influences on Buchanan’s public choice and constitutional political economy. It is commonly believed that Hume assumes in politics every man ought to be considered a knave, making him an influence on Buchanan’s idea of politics without romance. Yet, it is Smith who, like Buchanan, describes rent-seeking and suggests that public virtues may be the remedy through which good rules maintaining liberty and prosperity can be generated and enforced. Smith, like Buchanan, rejects sole reliance on economic incentives: the study of politics needs some romance.
DOI
10.1108/S0743-41542016000034A013
Publisher
Emerald Publishing Ltd.
Repository Citation
Farrant, A., & Paganelli, M. P. (2016). Romance or no romance? Adam Smith and David Hume in James Buchanan's "Politics without romance." In L. Fiorito, S. Scheall, C. E. Suprinyak (Series Eds.), Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology: Vol. 34A. Including a symposium on Austrian economics in the postwar era (pp. 357-372). https://doi.org/10.1108/S0743-41542016000034A013
Publication Information
Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology