Both probably gated for you.
1. Writing in a WSJ compendium of what people read in 2018, Patricia O’Toole writes,
The acute inflammation of the American body politic prompted close readings of Jane Mayer’s “Dark Money” and Nancy MacLean’s “Democracy in Chains.”
2. Writing a long review in the Journal of Economic Literature, Jean-Baptiste Fleury and Alain Marciano write,
MacLean does not provide convincing proofs to sustain the accusations she makes. Determined as she is to portray one man as the mastermind of her story, MacLean tries to make everything fit into that implausible assumption, no matter the cost. This gives an account marred by imprecisions, mistakes, distortions, unproven assumptions about the motives behind each character’s actions, and sometimes a surprising lack of rigor. Sadly enough, it is only by misrepresenting her main characters that MacLean can construct the story she insists on telling and that, in the end, proves unconvincing.
If would bet that Ms. O’Toole, a professional historian, will stay safely within her bubble. It is unlikely that she will ever see the review in the JEL; on the off chance that she does read the review, my guess is that she will find some excuse to dismiss it.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325126980_The_Sound_of_Silence_A_Review_Essay_of_Nancy_MacLean's_Democracy_in_Chains_The_Deep_History_of_the_Radical_Right's_Stealth_Plan_for_America
Can’t find an ungated version of the O’Toole piece but realized that although I had read dozens of critical reviews of Democracy in Chains, I’d not read any defenses that I can remember. Probably a good indicator of the bubble I am in, so I read a discussion of the criticisms of the book by Andrew Seal who concluded:
“Absent the assumption that she was out to get Buchanan and Cowen, there are perfectly valid and reasonable ways to read all those supposed misquotations or mischaracterizations that demonstrate not that she’s unprofessional but that she has strong views about what democracy is and that she has held Buchanan and Cowen to that exacting standard. We can argue about her standard, but the attacks on her credibility are meritless.”
http://www.publicseminar.org/2017/07/the-controversy-over-democracy-in-chains/
From this I gather the book was altogether unremarkable. As just another droplet of leftism from the firehose of radical leftism that is the US history academy, the book would have gotten no attention whatsoever had Tyler Cowen’s name not come up.
Cowen is a big boy and can fight is own fights. And James Buchanan’s works speak for themselves. They need no defense or protection.
If only a fraction of the attention given to this cult of celebrity squabble had been directed to the widespread teaching of Howard Zinn’s A Young People’s History Of The United States, volumes 1 and 2 in public school classrooms across the country, future generations would be much better off.
You quote the reviewer as writing, “she has strong views about what democracy is and that she has held Buchanan and Cowen to that exacting standard.”
How does that excuse her for conjecturing a racist motivation behind Buchanan’s writings, and presenting that motivation as “fact,” without solid evidence?
If she wants to castigate Buchanan for not sharing her “exacting views about what democracy [SIC] is,” fine, but that’s not history, it’s political philosophy, and it certainly does not follow that Buchanan’s skepticism about democracy had a racist element. Conjecturing that a particular important thinker of the recent past had a specific motivation like that, and presenting the conjecture as history even though the evidence for it is flimsy, seems worse than the common run of academic agit-prop.
I read the book and attended a seminar by Nancy MacLean about it. The seminar was sponsored by a chapter of the AAUP, and was attended by about 25 Faculty and students. During the ample discussion period, I asked some questions and politely expressed several disagreements. Although I was a discordant voice, Prof. MacLean gave me a full hearing and addressed my points squarely. Actually, the seminar was a model of open, constructive exchange of ideas.
Three key disagreements:
• If you seek a libertarian (or classical liberal) Nobel Laureate in economics who changed American politics, look to Milton Friedman rather than James Buchanan. As Bryan Caplan explains in The Myth of the Rational Voter, public opinion shapes politics (through majority-rule democracy) more than interest groups do. Milton Friedman—truly a public intellectual—had a substantial impact on public opinion (i.e., on democracy) through his books for a broad audience and public television appearances.
• If your quarrel with public-choice theory is the postulate that people in government are motivated by self-interest, then your quarrel really is with everyday economic theory altogether, at least until the recent advent of behavioral economics. Sure, when pressed, economists always allowed, there’s no accounting for tastes; but self-interest had pride of place. “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we can expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” James Buchanan simply extended Adam Smith’s postulate to model the behavior of people in government. Nancy MacLean is correct that real political psychology often differs from the abstraction of homo economicus. Regrettably, the difference isn’t always pretty. It’s awful when voters, politicians, or bureaucrats are motivated by negative passions (e.g., racism, hatred of Jews, envy, visceral dislike) or bias.
• If you want to achieve progressive ideals, be careful not to wish for unchained democracy. Majority rule implacably overrides the the minority. Constitutionalism specifies rights; i.e., behaviors that majorities cannot prohibit. Reasonable people may disagree about the demarcation of individual rights and majority rule; and about the demarcation of State jurisdiction and Federal jurisdiction; and about how flexible the Constitution should be. Wise (or lucky) constitutions strike a just balance.
Where was the seminar you attended?
David, The seminar was held at Trinity College, Connecticut, on January 26, 2018.
Thanks. Have you written up somewhere the back and forth between you and MacLean? This seems so at odds with the other reports I’ve seen, one of which is on YouTube, where she trashes an econ professor who challenges her–at MTSU in Murfreesboro.
David,
Various circumstances helped.
1) At the outset of the seminar, Nancy MacLean asked participants to identify themselves and their expectations for the seminar. When my turn came, towards the end of the circle, I stated that I might be the lone discordant voice, because I follow and admire the work of Michael Munger and Tyler Cowen, two of her critics; but that I have an open mind, look forward to learning more about her research, and hope to have constructive discussion. This was a civil ice-breaker.
2) I mentioned also that I earned my degree is in history, and later read deeply in the social sciences; especially economics. This would prevent conversation from becoming an adversarial ‘economics vs. history’ situation.
3) During discussion period, I let others speak and waited until discussion began to flag.
4) When my turn came, I first drew attention to common ground: a) Methodological individualism (which historians find congenial) is pluralistic about motivations, beyond narrow self-interest. b) We are like-minded about some hot-button issues in NC and DC. c) We both cherish rights (i.e., crucial constraints on democracy); indeed, rights protect more than the one-percenters.
5) When I articulated specific criticisms, I began with succinct evidence and concluded with a question. For example: I read a few sentences from James Buchanan’s private letter to Arthur Seldon (1984), about education, vouchers, and segregation; a letter in which Buchanan states, “although I know the evils of state monopoly, I would also want, somehow, to avoid the evils of race-class-cultural segregation that an unregulated voucher scheme might introduce.”
Then I asked: Is it beyond the pale, in discourse about education policy, to advocate public funding, private delivery, and regulation to achieve integration? Don’t we have public funding, private delivery, and regulation in health care (Medicare, Medicaid)? Prof. MacLean replied that Buchanan wasn’t sincere, and that he was positioning himself rhetorically for candidacy for a Nobel Prize. I countered that it was a private letter, unknown to the world until recently, and I urged her to adhere consistently to the principle of charity in interpretation, since she faults public-choice economists for impugning the motives of people in government.
And so we had a substantive, civil back-and-forth about several key issues. We continued the conversation a bit afterwards, one on one. The few students present were intrigued.
There is but one social science: methodological individualism. If you can get your interlocutor onto that common-sense terrain, and also seek some common ground in values, then productive dialogue has a chance.
Well done.