ADVERTISEMENT

MTSU ALUMNI

BlueRaiderFan

Hall of Famer
Oct 4, 2003
5,590
69
48
Apparently an MTSU alum is one of the deranged minds behind the modern ultra conservative movement. See below.

Meet the Economist Behind the One Percent’s Stealth Takeover of America
By Lynn Parramore

MAY 30, 2018 | HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT |INSTITUTIONS, POLICY & POLITICS

1200px-James_Buchanan_by_Atlas_network.jpg

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 America’s 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 you’ve 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 Trump’s 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.

An Unlocked Door in Virginia

MacLean’s book reads like an intellectual detective story. In 2010, she moved to North Carolina, where a Tea Party-dominated Republican Party got control of both houses of the state legislature and began pushing through a radical program to suppress voter rights, decimate public services, and slash taxes on the wealthy that shocked a state long a beacon of southern moderation. Up to this point, the figure of James Buchanan flickered in her peripheral vision, but as she began to study his work closely, the events in North Carolina and also Wisconsin, where Governor Scott Walker was leading assaults on collective bargaining rights, shifted her focus.

Could it be that this relatively obscu


Link below

https://www.ineteconomics.org/persp...-the-one-percents-stealth-takeover-of-america

https://www.ineteconomics.org/persp...-the-one-percents-stealth-takeover-of-america
 
Well that's one view of Buchanan...just cause its on the Internet doesn't make it true. Where they lost me was putting him into the Milton Friedman camp - that was actually a complement with most people that truly understand economics.
 
ADVERTISEMENT