James M. Buchanan and Edmund Burke: Opposite Sides of the Same Fiscal Constitution Coin

John Considine

Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 2006, vol. 28, issue 2, 243-257

Abstract: Constitutional economics examines the individual's choice-between-rules rather than their choice-within-rules. It is, according to James M. Buchanan, a restatement of the classical political economy of Adam Smith. One of its primary normative implications is the need for a fiscal constitution. Given the late eighteenth century intellectual basis for such fiscal constitutions it appears, at first glance, a little strange that the research program does not consider Edmund Burke's 1780 economic constitution worthy of consideration. The most obvious reason for Burke's exclusion from constitutional political economy is that the methodological basis of Buchanan's twentieth century constitutional economics seems almost the polar opposite of Burke's eighteenth century legislator's attempt to introduce a fiscal constitution. However, both methodologies suffer from internal inconsistency in their cases for a fiscal constitution. One of the primary reasons for this inconsistency is that each needs to appeal to ideas more at home in the methodology of the other. Buchanan adapts a quasi-Burke approach by the introduction of ethical norms not consistent with the self-interest postulate, while Burke adopts a quasi-Buchanan approach by appealing to the principle of consent to justify his reform of institutions that have been formed by custom and tradition. Ultimately, the methodological difference is not as great as it appears at first. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that Burke's work deserves recognition in the broader constitutional economics research program because to exclude him on the grounds of methodology is to fail to understand the logical implications of Buchanan's work.

Date: 2006
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