James M. Buchanan

The eighteenth century discovery that, in an institutional framework that facilitates voluntary exchanges among individuals, this process generates results that might be evaluated positively, produced 'economics,' as an independent academic discipline or science.

In 1987, the United States celebrates the bicentennial anniversary of the constitutional convention that provided the basic rules for the American political order. This convention was one of the very few historical examples in which political rules were deliberately chosen.

From 1961 to 1964, I was fortunate enough to work at a think tank in the Kenwood neighborhood of Chicago. As a writer and editor, I reported in a publication about the thinkers. Our offices were in a former mansion; I worked in what had been the ballroom. As I sat typing my copy, I imagined the dancers waltzing.