The supposed relationship between James M. Buchanan and the forces of “Massive Resistance” to school desegregation in Virginia is at the center of Nancy MacLean’s story in Democracy in Chains. As Phil has pointed out on his blog and as we discuss in our paper, MacLean attempts to link Buchanan to Massive Resistance via the […]
Does Hayekian Economics Undermine Hayekian Politics?
I have Bowles’ Moral Economy on my desk awaiting my attention. I’ll inevitably get to it when I have something important and urgent I can put off in order to say, “Hey, I should really read that.” A lot of the themes Bowles discusses are at least touched on in Douglass C. North’s Understanding the Process […]
A Quality YouTube Channel: University of Richmond
The University of Richmond’s Jepson School of Leadership Studies sponsors an annual Summer Institute for the History of Economic Thought with excellent lectures by Deirdre McCloskey and James M. Buchanan (several by Buchanan). Of particular interest are McCloskey’s lecture and Buchanan’s talk “Chicago Thinking: Old and New.” Most students of economic thinking who are familiar […]
A Bit of Recent TV: Omega
I finished “Salvation.” It’s fun brain candy popcorn tv with a sort-of-cliffhanger ending that makes me think a Season 2 is coming. There’s a nice, healthy dose of skepticism that the government will do the right thing, which makes it satisfying. On the exercise bike in the basement, I watched “Omega,” which is a set […]
Recent Reading E8
Jesse Burkhead, Public School Finance: Economics and Politics (Syracuse, 1964). As part of an ongoing investigation of the claims in Nancy MacLean’s “Democracy in Chains,” I was led to the three editions of James M. Buchanan’s textbooks “The Public Finances.” Buchanan’s citations are sparse, but in the second edition (I think), he refers readers to […]
Cheap Family Fun in Birmingham? Try Samford Sports.
I’ll get the obvious out of the way: I work at Samford, I can go to Samford events for free*, and it is in my personal interest to get as many excellent students on campus as possible because they might at some point become excellent Samford undergraduates. But if you’re looking for a good afternoon […]