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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMust read: Meet the Economist Behind the One Percent's Stealth Takeover of America
Last edited Tue Dec 4, 2018, 02:23 PM - Edit history (2)
This article has been re-circulated due to what Republicans are trying to pull in Wisconsin and Michigan. Highly recommend McClean's book Democracy in Chains
Nobel laureate James Buchanan is the intellectual linchpin of the Koch-funded attack on democratic institutions, argues Duke historian Nancy MacLean
Ask people to name the key minds that have shaped Americas burst of radical right-wing attacks on working conditions, consumer rights and public services, and they will typically mention figures like free market-champion Milton Friedman, libertarian guru Ayn Rand, and laissez-faire economists Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises.
James McGill Buchanan is a name you will rarely hear unless youve taken several classes in economics. And if the Tennessee-born Nobel laureate were alive today, it would suit him just fine that most well-informed journalists, liberal politicians, and even many economics students have little understanding of his work.
The reason? Duke historian Nancy MacLean contends that his philosophy is so stark that even young libertarian acolytes are only introduced to it after they have accepted the relatively sunny perspective of Ayn Rand. (Yes, you read that correctly). If Americans really knew what Buchanan thought and promoted, and how destructively his vision is manifesting under their noses, it would dawn on them how close the country is to a transformation most would not even want to imagine, much less accept.
That is a dangerous blind spot, MacLean argues in a meticulously researched book, Democracy in Chains, a finalist for the National Book Award in Nonfiction. While Americans grapple with Donald Trumps chaotic presidency, we may be missing the key to changes that are taking place far beyond the level of mere politics. Once these changes are locked into place, there may be no going back.
https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/meet-the-economist-behind-the-one-percents-stealth-takeover-of-america
Important to note that the Koch Brothers aren't Republicans, they're Libertarians , and they're just using the party to undermine democracy and install a corporate authoritarian state. Their aim is to destroy both parties and Republicans are happy to help them do it.
calimary
(81,220 posts)octoberlib
(14,971 posts)With Kochs money and enthusiasm, Buchanans academic school evolved into something much bigger. By the 1990s, Koch realized that Buchanans ideas transmitted through stealth and deliberate deception, as MacLean amply documents could help take government down through incremental assaults that the media would hardly notice. The tycoon knew that the project was extremely radical, even a revolution in governance, but he talked like a conservative to make his plans sound more palatable.
Girard442
(6,070 posts)The fact that he wrote extensively about sophisticated concepts doesn't change the underlying reality.
ProfessorGAC
(64,995 posts)Economic theory based upon enforced darwinian principles and no supporting mathematical or practical basis? This wins a Nobel.
I think the Nobel committee needs to rethink the criteria. Being a novel crackpot without regard to human beings seems quite the opposite of what Alfred intended.
octoberlib
(14,971 posts)not empirical data. It's why Koch funded politicians have been waging a war on facts.
ProfessorGAC
(64,995 posts)That's why i was directing my criticism at the Nobel committee. Would they give the prize in physics based only on abstract theory? I know they've given the prize for theory, but there was at least some mathematical proofs demonstrated in that work.
This guy getting a Nobel is kind of ridiculous.
On Edit: She actually pointed out that he eschewed the math and practical applications in favor of abstraction. How convenient is that? "Here's how i think it should work, even though there is not a shred of proof that things would actually work that way."
octoberlib
(14,971 posts)to abolish public education in that state. I expect to see this in other red states, soon. Thank god, Democrats took back 7 Governorships to thwart their call for a constitutional convention.
ProfessorGAC
(64,995 posts)Then on the side piece about that guy, WOW! What a giant tool that guy is.
superpatriotman
(6,247 posts)This guy and his admirers can go F themselves
Girard442
(6,070 posts)marylandblue
(12,344 posts)appalachiablue
(41,127 posts)Buchanans view of human nature was distinctly dismal. Adam Smith saw human beings as self-interested and hungry for personal power and material comfort, but he also acknowledged social instincts like compassion and fairness. Buchanan, in contrast, insisted that people were primarily driven by venal self-interest.
Crediting people with altruism or a desire to serve others was romantic fantasy: politicians and government workers were out for themselves, and so, for that matter, were teachers, doctors, and civil rights activists. They wanted to control others and wrest away their resources: Each person seeks mastery over a world of slaves, he wrote in his 1975 book, The Limits of Liberty.
The people who needed protection were property owners, and their rights could only be secured though constitutional limits to prevent the majority of voters from encroaching on them, an idea Buchanan lays out in works like Property as a Guarantor of Liberty (1993).
MacLean observes that Buchanan saw society as a cutthroat realm of makers (entrepreneurs) constantly under siege by takers (everybody else) His own language was often more stark, warning the alleged prey of parasites and predators out to fleece them.
https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/meet-the-economist-behind-the-one-percents-stealth-takeover-of-america
realmirage
(2,117 posts)It will be unavoidable due to human tendency among the rich to take more and more power. History shows this. Its a never ending cycle.