User:Oceanflynn/sandbox/Democracy in Chains

Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America is a non-fiction book by Nancy MacLean published in 2017. Democracy in Chains is a history of the impact of economist James Buchanan and his public choice theory, on American politics. According to the Boston Review, the "book has led to an enormous, highly charged debate" pitting Buchanan supporters against his critics. MacLean wrote that James McGill Buchanan, the winner of Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, had pursued a program of suppressing democracy and political liberty in the name of economic freedom.

Content
MacLean's Democracy in Chains is a history of the "public choice" economist James Buchanan and his impact on American politics." According to the Boston Review, the "book has led to an enormous, highly charged debate" pitting Buchanan supporters against his critics.

Her book claims that Buchanan saw a conflict between "economic freedom and political liberty", and that he sought "conspiratorial secrecy" in pursuit of "a hidden programme for suppressing democracy on behalf of the very rich".


 * public choice theory
 * Charles Koch
 * George Mason University
 * libertarian movement

Alleged errors, omissions, inaccuracies
Reviews in Reason, xyz have said that MacLean made errors regarding her sources, some quotations and the accuracy of the principal thesis underlying the book.

Conspiracy theory
Political scientists Henry Farrell (of George Washington University) and Steven Teles (of Johns Hopkins University) described the book as "conspiracy theory in the guise of intellectual history." "Even the intellectual left is drawn to conspiracy theories about the right".

Buchanan's alleged support of segregation
See

Buchanan and apartheid
Reason's Doherty, questioned MacLean's claim that Buchanan supported apartheid.

Reviews
The book has been praised by XYZ and criticized by XYZ.
 * The Atlantic
 * Sam Tanenhaus
 * George Monbiot
 * The Guardian
 * Slate
 * The New Republic
 * Alternet
 * Heather Boushey
 * Jack Rakove

Related articles

 * Amazon
 * Henry Farrell (political scientist)
 * Tyler Cowen
 * Jonathan H. Adler
 * Roosevelt Institute
 * Russ Roberts
 * David R. Henderson
 * Don Boudreaux
 * Michael Munger
 * David Bernstein (law professor)
 * Brian Doherty (journalist)
 * Southern Agrarians
 * Military dictatorship of Chile (1973–90)
 * Steve Horwitz