An insightful article by Peter Boettke on Econlib, titled “Virginia Political Economy: James Buchanan’s Journey,” illustrates the intricate relationship between political philosophy and economics in the work of James Buchanan. It brings to mind a captivating two-part video interview of Buchanan conducted by Geoffrey Brennan, with whom he frequently collaborated. They co-authored the seminal work The Reason of Rules: Constitutional Political Economy (1985), which encapsulates the foundational ideas of contractarianism and constitutionalism central to their academic endeavors. (You can access this classic text online; I had the opportunity to review it for Econlib recently.)
This video interview provides a more informal and accessible exploration of Buchanan’s thoughts and ideas, even years after his passing in 2013. Toward the end of their two-hour dialogue, Buchanan reflects, in a manner reminiscent of Albert Camus, on what he perceives as the ultimate absurdity of existence—yet he acknowledges an exception to this bleak outlook. He seemingly veers away from the strict confines of methodological individualism, suggesting that both death and the quest for meaning in life necessitate a broader perspective. The Southern drawl of his speech adds a unique texture that a transcription would only partially capture. Below is my attempt to transcribe his poignant musings, with ellipses indicating moments of hesitation or incomplete thoughts:
“The whole thing may be absurd. What is it all about? … Why is it that I am interested in what’s going to happen when I am no longer around? In my case, it can’t be genetic because I don’t have any children. … But yet then I am intensely interested in that. … It seems to me that—and this does get me a bit away from the methodological individualism … we, or at least I, feel like I am a kind of member of a kind of a tribe, what we might call a tribe that is a continuing tribe, it doesn’t die … it may die, but it does not necessarily die, but it does beyond my mortality, it’s kind of a tribe that would be described as the spirit of liberty or the spirit of classical liberalism. And it seems to me as a participant in that game … furthering those ideas … and I live as long as those ideas live in a way. I am just a part of a stream and in a sense that stream is moving on. Now it takes people to keep pushing and keep motivating that stream, or else the stream can die, it’s not necessarily immortal. On the other hand, it transcends human life … it provides meaning to ordinary life. … It seems to me the spirit of liberalism, the spirit of classical liberalism, or the spirit of liberty if you want, can be a kind of justification that sort of gets you away from this ultimate absurdity in a way.”
There are profound enigmas within the universe that extend far beyond the realm of political philosophy. Regardless of whether life is ultimately meaningful or absurd, or if eternal life exists, it is the individual who navigates the experience of existence and mortality. As poet Leonard Cohen so eloquently sang, “Tho’ there is a God or not.”
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Buchanan’s family farm in Tennessee
