IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/soecon/v85y2019i3p691-714.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What Should (Knightian) Economists Do? James M. Buchanan's 1980 Visit to Chile

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew Farrant

Abstract

Although Milton Friedman and Arnold Harberger became involved with Pinochet's Chile in the mid‐1970s, an increasingly influential body of scholarship argues that James M. Buchanan was similarly eager to provide Pinochet's dictatorship with advice. Buchanan reportedly had a heavy influence on the development of Chile's 1980 Constitution and similarly helped to design Chile's binomial electoral system. Buchanan's seeming willingness to advise Pinochet's dictatorship provides a stark contrast to his longstanding advocacy of Frank Knight's view that democracy is “government by discussion” and Buchanan's oft‐repeated insistence that democratic consensus trumps economic expertise. This article draws upon a wealth of largely ignored archival evidence and Chilean primary source material to engage and evaluate whether Buchanan—a Knightian economist par excellence—abandoned his advocacy of “government by discussion” and provided early 1980s advice that helped Pinochet's regime of “institutionalized terror” (Valdes , p. 30) design a constitution that would chain any subsequent Chilean democracy.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew Farrant, 2019. "What Should (Knightian) Economists Do? James M. Buchanan's 1980 Visit to Chile," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 85(3), pages 691-714, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:soecon:v:85:y:2019:i:3:p:691-714
    DOI: 10.1002/soej.12323
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/soej.12323
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/soej.12323?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ross B. Emmett (ed.), 2010. "The Elgar Companion to the Chicago School of Economics," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2591.
    2. Harberger, Arnold C, 1993. "Secrets of Success: A Handful of Heroes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(2), pages 343-350, May.
    3. Alain Marciano, 2009. "Buchanan’s constitutional political economy: exchange vs. choice in economics and in politics," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 42-56, March.
    4. Hayek, F. A., 2012. "Hayek on Hayek," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226321202 edited by Kresge, Stephen & Wenar, Leif, September.
    5. Avner Offer & Gabriel Söderberg, 2016. "The Nobel Factor: The Prize in Economics, Social Democracy, and the Market Turn," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 10841.
    6. Buchanan, James M, 1987. "The Constitution of Economic Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(3), pages 243-250, June.
    7. Frank H. Knight, 1948. "Professor Heimann on Religion and Economics," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(6), pages 480-480.
    8. James M. Buchanan, 1954. "Social Choice, Democracy, and Free Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 62(2), pages 114-114.
    9. William J. Barber, 1995. "Chile con Chicago: A Review Essay," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 33(4), pages 1941-1949, December.
    10. Levy,David M. & Peart,Sandra J., 2017. "Escape from Democracy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781316507131.
    11. Daniel Stedman Jones, 2012. "Masters of the Universe: Hayek, Friedman, and the Birth of Neoliberal Politics," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9827.
    12. John Meadowcroft, 2014. "Exchange, unanimity and consent: a defence of the public choice account of power," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 158(1), pages 85-100, January.
    13. Alain Marciano, 2009. "Buchanan's catallactic critique of Robbins' definition of economics," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(2), pages 125-138.
    14. Burgin, Angus, 2012. "The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free Markets since the Depression," Economics Books, Harvard University Press, number 9780674058132, Spring.
    15. Caldwell, Bruce & Montes, Leonidas, 2015. "Friedrich Hayek and his visits to Chile," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 63318, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    16. John Meadowcroft & William Ruger, 2014. "Hayek, Friedman, and Buchanan: On Public Life, Chile, and the Relationship between Liberty and Democracy," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(3), pages 358-367, July.
    17. repec:ucp:bkecon:9780226264141 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. DeMartino, George F., 2011. "The Economist's Oath: On the Need for and Content of Professional Economic Ethics," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199730568.
    19. Bruce Caldwell & Leonidas Montes, 2015. "Friedrich Hayek and his visits to Chile," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 28(3), pages 261-309, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alain Marciano, 2020. "Buchanan, Popular Myths, and the Social Responsibility of Economists," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 86(4), pages 1613-1629, April.
    2. Sergio Mariotti, 2021. "Forging a new alliance between economics and engineering," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 48(4), pages 551-572, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Andrew Farrant & Vlad Tarko, 2019. "James M. Buchanan’s 1981 visit to Chile: Knightian democrat or defender of the ‘Devil’s fix’?," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 32(1), pages 1-20, March.
    2. Ekkehard A. Köhler & Daniel Nientiedt, 2023. "Was Walter Eucken a proponent of authoritarian liberalism?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 195(3), pages 363-376, June.
    3. Fontaine, Philippe & Pooley, Jefferson, 2020. "Introduction: Whose Social Problems?," SocArXiv w59f3, Center for Open Science.
    4. Stephan Schulmeister, 2018. "From Prosperity into the Crisis and Back. On the Role of Economic Theories in the Long Cycle," WIFO Working Papers 571, WIFO.
    5. Ötsch, Walter & Pühringer, Stephan, 2019. "The anti-democratic logic of right-wing populism and neoliberal market-fundamentalism," Working Paper Series Ök-48, Cusanus Hochschule für Gesellschaftsgestaltung, Institut für Ökonomie.
    6. Mathieu Segers, 2019. "Eclipsing Atlantis: Trans‐Atlantic Multilateralism in Trade and Monetary Affairs as a Pre‐History to the Genesis of Social Market Europe (1942–1950)," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(1), pages 60-76, January.
    7. Karen Horn, 2020. "Richard E. Wagner (Ed.): James M. Buchanan—A theorist of political economy and social philosophy," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 31(2), pages 259-265, June.
    8. Vlad Tarko, 2017. "Neoliberalism and Regulatory Capitalism: Understanding the "Freer Markets More Rules" Puzzle," Working Paper Series 2017-02, Dickinson College, Department of Economics.
    9. Innset, Ola, 2023. "Dual Argument, Double Truth: On the continued importance of the state in neoliberal thought," SocArXiv kyvdm, Center for Open Science.
    10. Ross B. Emmett, 2020. "James M. Buchanan and Frank H. Knight on democracy as “government by discussion”," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 183(3), pages 303-314, June.
    11. Fernández-Villaverde, Jesús, 2016. "Magna Carta, the rule of law, and the limits on government," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(S), pages 22-28.
    12. John Meadowcroft, 2020. "Buchanan at the American Founding: the constitutional political economy of a republic of equals and unequals," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 183(3), pages 389-403, June.
    13. Nicolas Brisset & Raphaël Fèvre, 2019. "Peregrinations of an Economist: Perroux's Grand Tour of Fascist Europe," GREDEG Working Papers 2019-11, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.
    14. Guler Aras & Paul F. Williams, 2022. "Integrated Reporting and Integrated Thinking: Proposing a Reporting Model That Induces More Responsible Use of Corporate Power," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-19, March.
    15. Bruce Caldwell, 2020. "The Road to Serfdom after 75 Years," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 58(3), pages 720-748, September.
    16. Eduardo Wiesner, 2008. "The Political Economy of Macroeconomic Policy Reform in Latin America," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 12913.
    17. Jean-Michel Servet & Bruno Tinel, 2020. "The behavioral and neoliberal foundations of randomizations," Post-Print halshs-02562758, HAL.
    18. Sebastian Berger, 2013. "The Making of the Institutional Theory of Social Costs: Discovering the K. W. Kapp and J. M. Clark Correspondence," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(5), pages 1106-1130, November.
    19. Maxime Desmarais-Tremblay, 2014. "On the Definition of Public Goods. Assessing Richard A. Musgrave's contribution," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 14004, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    20. Sigmund Wagner-Tsukamoto, 2010. "Out of a slave contract: the analysis of pre-Hobbesian anarchists in the Old Testament," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 21(3), pages 288-307, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:soecon:v:85:y:2019:i:3:p:691-714. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)2325-8012 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.