James M. Buchanan’s 1969 book Cost and Choice speaks directly to the socialist calculation debate from the perspective of the “London Tradition” in the theory of cost. More than this, however, it places Buchanan alongside Adam Smith, Friedrich Hayek, and Milton Friedman as an exemplar of...

In 1986, the economist James M. Buchanan (1919-2013) was honored with the Nobel Prize for the remarkable yet straightforward application of economic theory to political decisions. His was a constrained vision of imperfection and political motivation rather than an unconstrained vision of...