Lives of Spirit and Dedication

By Barbara Rudolph.

Economists have traditionally shied away from theorizing about the public arena, ceding the terrain to political scientists. But not James McGill , Buchanan. He reasons that politicians and public servants act primarily to promote their own self-interest, not to serve some higher public good. They behave, he declares, much like consumers in a marketplace. For work stemming from that basic theory of political economy, Buchanan, 67, last week won the 1986 Nobel Prize for Economic Science. The Tennessee-born professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., is the 14th American to win the economics award since it was first given in 1969.

Buchanan is one of the leading spokesmen of the "public-choice" school, which applies the discipline of economics to the study of political decision making. Governments reflect the actions and choices of politicians, Buchanan argues, just as markets operate through the decisions of consumers who buy and sell goods. His theories help to explain the growth of budget deficits. Members of Congress are primarily motivated by a desire to get re-elected, Buchanan assumes. "Their natural proclivity is to spend more and not tax," he says. The result: a "regime of permanent budget deficits." The cure, Buchanan contends, is to change the rules of the game. Says he: "We must impose a constraint on politicians when it comes to spending." Accordingly, he supports a constitutional amendment to require Congress to balance the budget.

Buchanan has several admirers among members of the Reagan Administration. James Miller III, director of the Office of Management and Budget, was a doctoral student of Buchanan's in the 1960s. Another Buchanan supporter: Manuel Johnson, a former George Mason professor who is now vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.

When not teaching, Buchanan runs a 400-acre farm near Blacksburg, Va. He was rumored to have been a candidate for the Nobel award in 1984, but this year, he says, "I had no premonition this would happen. I was shocked." So were some mainstream economists who have paid little attention to Buchanan's work. One M.I.T. professor last week called public-choice theory "unsophisticated." Buchanan admits that his ideas are "not standard" but points out that many of his theories are "simple applications of common sense that the academics all forget about."

With reporting by Jay Branegan/Washington and Bernard Baumohl/New York