Abstract
Among twentieth century inheritors of the classical liberal mantle, the notion that democracy could be understood as “government by discussion” is found most prominently in the work of Frank H. Knight and James M. Buchanan. The purpose of the present paper is to compare Knight and Buchanan’s use of the expression “democracy is government by discussion”. Knight adopted the expression in reference to the means by which (a) individuals coordinate decisions and actions to facilitate constitutional decisions about social action and (b) we coordinate society’s norms and values. For Buchanan, democracy as discussion occurs only at the level of constitutional decisions. Thus, while their use of the expression unites them, it also provides a way of examining the divide between them.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
The fourth and final section of the paper, entitled “Social Science and Social Action”, also was published separately in 1935 in the International Journal of Ethics, now simply known as Ethics (Knight 1935d).
A complete genealogy of Knight’s various attempts to publish a book for Pacific University are detailed in the appendix to Emmett (2011). The three Pacific University lectures Knight delivered were: I. Social Health and Disease; II. Economic Individualism and the Good Life; and III. Freedom, Authority, and Power. Along with a set of introductory comments, the manuscripts of the three lectures are in the Frank Knight Papers, Box 24, Folders 17, 19–23 (Special Collections Research Center, The University of Chicago Library), and total 189 manuscript pages.
One might have expected Knight to retreat into utilitarianism, like some of his eighteenth-century precursors. But, while utilitarianism was not as great a folly to him as Christian ethics or some form of idealism, it held no appeal. The key to his rejection of utilitarianism lies in his appreciation of the necessity of independent standards as guides for ethics as well as aesthetics. Bentham’s claim that pushpin was a good as poetry was as abhorrent to Knight as the notion that a bowl of gruel was as good as a bottle of claret (see Knight [1939] 1999).
References
Arrow, K. J. (1951). Social choice and individual values. New York: Wiley.
Bagehot, W. (1872). Physics and politics. London: Henry S King.
Bryce, J. (1889). The American commonwealth. London: Macmillan.
Buchanan, J. M. (1954). Social choice, democracy and free markets. Journal of Political Economy,62(2), 114–122.
Buchanan, J. M. (1967). Politics and science: Reflections on Knight’s critique of Polanyi. Ethics,77(4), 303–310.
Buchanan, J. M. (1968). Frank H. Knight. In D. Sills (Ed.), The international encyclopedia of the social sciences (Vol. 3, pp. 424–428). New York: Macmillan.
Buchanan, J. M. (1979). Natural and artifactual man. In J. M. Buchanan, R. D. Tollison, & B. Tollison (Eds.), What should economists do? (pp. 93–112). Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund.
Buchanan, J. M. (1987a). The constitution of economic policy. American Economic Review,77(3), 243–250.
Buchanan, J. M. (1987b). The economizing element in Knight’s ethical critique of capitalist order. Ethics,98(1), 61–75.
Buchanan, J. M. (1994). Choosing what to choose. Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics,150(1), 123–135.
Buchanan, J. M. (2001). Moral community, moral order, or moral anarchy. In J. M. Buchanan (Ed.), Moral science and moral order (Vol. 17, pp. 187–201). Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund.
Buchanan, J. M. (2005). Why I, too, am not a conservative: The normative vision of classical liberalism. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Buchanan, J. M., & Yong, J. Y. (2015). Individualism and political disorder. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Dewey, J. (1935). Liberalism and social action. New York: G. P. Putnam.
Emmett, R. B. (2011). Frank H. Knight on the role of the ‘entrepreneur function’ in the modern enterprise. Seattle University Law Review,34(4), 1139–1154.
Emmett, R. B. (2019). Why James Buchanan kept Frank Knight’s picture on his wall despite fundamental disagreements about economics, ethics, and politics. In R. E. Wagner (Ed.), James M. Buchanan: A theorist of political economy and social philosophy (pp. 1155–1170). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Hayek, F. A. (1960). The constitution of liberty. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Knight, F. H. (1921). Risk, uncertainty, and profit. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Knight, F. H. (1924). The limitations of scientific method in economics. In R. G. Tugwell (Ed.), The trend of economics (pp. 229–267). New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Knight, F. H. (1933). The dilemma of liberalism. Ann Arbor, MI: Edwards Brothers.
Knight, F. H. (1934). Modern thought: Is it anti-intellectual? University of Chicago Magazine,27, 20–23.
Knight, F. H. (1935a). Economic theory and nationalism. In The ethics of competition and other essays (pp. 269–351). New York: Harper & Bros.
Knight, F. H. (1935b). Ethics and the economic interpretation. In The ethics of competition and other essays (pp. 19–40). New York: Harper & Bros.
Knight, F. H. (1935c). Professor Hayek and the theory of investment. Economic Journal,45(177), 77–94.
Knight, F. H. (1935d). Social science and social action. International Journal of Ethics,46(1), 1–33.
Knight, F. H. (1935e). The ethics of competition. In The ethics of competition and other essays (pp. 41–75). New York: Harper & Bros.
Knight, F. H. (1936a). Pragmatism and social action. Ethics,48(2), 229–236.
Knight, F. H. (1936b). The quantity of capital and the rate of interest: I. Journal of Political Economy,44(4), 433–463.
Knight, F. H. (1936c). The quantity of capital and the rate of interest: II. Journal of Political Economy,44(5), 612–642.
Knight, F. H. (1946). The sickness of liberal society. Ethics,56(2), 79–95.
Knight, F. H. (1949). Virtue and knowledge: The view of Professor Polanyi. Ethics,59(4), 271–284.
Knight, F. H. (1960). Intelligence and democratic action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Knight, F. H. (1967). Laissez faire: Pro and con. Journal of Political Economy,75(6), 782–795.
Knight, F. H. (1939). Ethics and economic reform: I. The ethics of liberalism. Economica, n.s., 6(21), 1–29.
McCloskey, D. N. (2006). The bourgeois virtues: Ethics for an age of commerce. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Mill, J. S. (1859). On liberty. London: John W. Parker and Son.
Polanyi, M. (1946). Science, faith, and society. London: Oxford University Press.
Polanyi, M. (1962). The republic of science. Chicago: Roosevelt University.
Smith, V. L., & Wilson, B. J. (2017). Sentiments, conduct, and trust in the laboratory. Social Philosophy and Policy,43(1), 25–55.
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank Lenore Ealy for helpful comments on the original draft.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Emmett, R.B. James M. Buchanan and Frank H. Knight on democracy as “government by discussion”. Public Choice 183, 303–314 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-020-00815-4
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-020-00815-4