What should economists do?: A historical perspective

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to present “What Should Economists Do?”, an article written by James Buchanan and published in 1964, in an historical perspective. We put forward an important point, namely the opposition with Ludwig von Mises, and Buchanan’s attempt at differentiating his approach from Mises. Instead of in addition to Robbins, that he nominally targeted, Buchanan was actually criticizing Mises. Buchanan thus defined economics in a very specific way, as a science that studies exchange but only when it results from a desire (or a propensity) to exchange.