How James M. Buchanan Revolutionized America?

James M. Buchanan revolutionized not only politics, but America as a whole. As a magnifier of the public choice theory, he brought to attention errors in the thinking of an entire nation. He wrote books, taught at colleges, and won a Nobel prize for his ideas and actions in sharing them. "Public choice is summarized as the extension and application of the tools and methods of economics to the subject matter of political science," (James Buchanan neh.gov). What he says here explains his theory perfectly, looking at politics as a market. That, in and of itself, revolutionized the field of political science. Economic science is the study of the production, distribution, and consumption of goods. The study of how people use resources, as well as

James M. Buchanan was born in Murfreesboro, Tennessee on October 3, 1919. He died at the age of 93 in 2013. He left Middle Tennessee State University with a Bachelors of Science in 1940 before going to the University of Tennessee for a Masters of Arts degree in 1941. After that he attended the United States Naval Reserve Midshipmen's School in New York. He remained in the navy for five years before returning to school at the University of Chicago and graduating with a Phd in 1983. He proceeded to teach as a professor of economics at three different universities for a number of years. He wrote several books both on his idea of public choice as well as many aspects of politics. The idea of public choice changed America by bringing to attention the quantity of power that politicians have versus how much they should have. He challenged the views of politicians, asking society to view them as people who could be influenced and make indulgent decisions rather than someone who would put society above themselves all of the time. James Buchanan stated: “They will operate depending on what rules they’re working within, and so we need to think about that when we lay down the structure of the rules.”

Public choice brings up how to change politics to work better,“politics without romance” (James Buchanan, econlib.org). Public choice points out the flaws in politics, the flaws of human nature. That self-interest should have no part in politics and that regulations have the potential to correct errors in political decision making. This is well explained as follows: “But public choice, like the economic model of rational behavior on which it rests, assumes that people are guided chiefly by their own self-interests and, more importantly, that the motivations of people in the political process are no different from those of people in the steak, housing, or car market.” (econlib.org). "Public choice, as a research program, was developed by many scholars over a full half century," (James Buchanan, neh.gov). This quote by Buchanan explains that while the idea of public choice was not started by James Buchanan, he was the one to apply it to the field of politics. This is reaffirmed in the following statement. "Its origins are in public finance theory, welfare economics, game theory, rational choice theory, institutional economics, and other areas of