2024 the best democracy in the world review

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Winner of the Lillian Smith Book Award
Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize
Finalist for the National Book Award
The Nation's "Most Valuable Book"

“[A] vibrant intellectual history of the radical right.”—The Atlantic

“This sixty-year campaign to make libertarianism mainstream and eventually take the government itself is at the heart of Democracy in Chains. . . . If you're worried about what all this means for America's future, you should be.”—NPR

An explosive exposé of the right’s relentless campaign to eliminate unions, suppress voting, privatize public education, stop action on climate change, and alter the Constitution.

*Now Updated With A New Preface*

Behind today’s headlines of billionaires taking over our government is a secretive political establishment with long, deep, and troubling roots. The capitalist radical right has been working not simply to change who rules, but to fundamentally alter the rules of democratic governance. But billionaires did not launch this movement; a white intellectual in the embattled Jim Crow South did. Democracy in Chains names its true architect—the Nobel Prize-winning political economist James McGill Buchanan—and dissects the operation he and his colleagues designed over six decades to alter every branch of government to disempower the majority.

In a brilliant and engrossing narrative, Nancy MacLean shows how Buchanan forged his ideas about government in a last gasp attempt to preserve the white elite’s power in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education. In response to the widening of American democracy, he developed a brilliant, if diabolical, plan to undermine the ability of the majority to use its numbers to level the playing field between the rich and powerful and the rest of us.

Corporate donors and their right-wing foundations were only too eager to support Buchanan’s work in teaching others how to divide America into “makers” and “takers.” And when a multibillionaire on a messianic mission to rewrite the social contract of the modern world, Charles Koch, discovered Buchanan, he created a vast, relentless, and multi-armed machine to carry out Buchanan’s strategy.

Without Buchanan's ideas and Koch's money, the libertarian right would not have succeeded in its stealth takeover of the Republican Party as a delivery mechanism. Now, with Mike Pence as Vice President, the cause has a longtime loyalist in the White House, not to mention a phalanx of Republicans in the House, the Senate, a majority of state governments, and the courts, all carrying out the plan. That plan includes harsher laws to undermine unions, privatizing everything from schools to health care and Social Security, and keeping as many of us as possible from voting. Based on ten years of unique research, Democracy in Chains tells a chilling story of right-wing academics and big money run amok. This revelatory work of scholarship is also a call to arms to protect the achievements of twentieth-century American self-government.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Books; Reprint edition (June 5, 2018)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 384 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1101980974
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1101980972
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.4 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.4 x 0.9 x 8.4 inches
Reviewer: Jules Law
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: One of the most fascinating things about this book--for readers ...
Review: One of the most fascinating things about this book--for readers of almost any political stripe--is its careful and detailed exploration of the complex relationship between libertarianism and conservative causes. This is not at all a simple, single, or predictable relationship, and MacLean does a superb job of setting the evolving relationship between the two in its social and historical context. At the heart of this book is the story of a single figure, James Buchanan, and MacLean's unprecedented archival discoveries about his intellectual and political development are fascinating. I have to be amused at the libertarian critics of this book who explicitly lament that MacLean didn't talk to them in her attempt to understand the history of the movement. This is a work of scholarship which reconstructs the history of an intellectual and political movement using documented sources.Let me get down to the nub of what is already the most significant dispute between MacLean's critics and her defenders (bracketing the substantial portion of her critics whose one-line reviews betray that they clearly haven't read the book): MacLean's argument is based on a careful and detailed juxtaposition of the rationales adopted by libertarians in the 1950s and 1960s, and the concrete social and political context raging around them at the time (most crucially, the resistance to court-mandated de-segregation). Those who believe that MacLean must produce a smoking gun and ballistics analysis--say, an admission by Buchanan that he opposed integrated public schools because he didn't like African Americans--will I'm sure continue strenuously to deny that there was any connection between the libertarianism of the era and broader conservative agendas. Anyone committed to the belief that intentions and agendas have to be gaged by attention to concrete historical context (not least by a consideration of the audiences and venues for which statements were designed) will find MacLean's patient, detailed and comprehensive research indispensable.One of the most fascinating and enduring lessons of MacLean's book is that the relationship between libertarianism and conservatism is vexed and far from inevitable--as are the relationships of either of these to Republicanism, states rights theory, or religious activism. Anyone interested in any of these topics should read this book. Which is easy advice, because it's engagingly and lucidly written, enabling readers to make their own decisions.

Reviewer: physicist
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Very important book. Read it!
Review: This is one of the most important books I've read in a decade. If you are interested in what the plan of the Republicans is for America, and how they are using tricks and deception to achieve it, you need to read this book.Extremely well written by a reputable historian who works at an actual University (Duke), this amazing book shows how libertarians, funded largely by Charles and David Koch, set in place a plan to greatly reduce democracy in America in order to allow the wealthy to run the country the way they want. Almost all the conservative think tanks: CATO institute, Heartland Institute, Heritage Foundation, etc., etc. are Koch funded and coordinated. The goal of all these libertarian foundations is to stop democratic processes from allowing ordinary people to have a say in schools, the environment, workers rights, etc. Other goals include destroying social security, privatizing the prisons, privatizing the schools, and removing most other government institutions that help ordinary Americans, including important parts of the US Constitution.Prof. Nancy Maclean stumbled accidentally on the trove of information about these plans while researching in the offices of the recently deceased Noble Prize winning economist, James Buchanen. Buchanen wrote much of the plan described above and even applied it to Pinochet's Chilean government (destroying the Chilean constitution and economy in the process). Charles Koch had been working for decades along similar lines, but came up short because the bulk of Americans actually want social security, anti-pollution laws, good public schools, and the ability to influence elections through voting. Around the 1990's, Charles Koch discovered Buchanen's ideas. He then switched the millions of dollars that were funding his hundreds of conservative think tanks and institutions to the stealth method of fooling the American people the way Buchanen suggested.This implementation has been amazingly successful and is easily seen every day now. For example the Buchanen/Koch technique to destroy social security (a system they think is at the root of the evil they say they are trying to stop), is to make small changes to the system that will eventually cause it fail. Some steps the plan calls for: Divide people into groups and get them to fight with each other, for example 1. Tell current Social Security recipients they will keep their pensions, so they won't resist the changes. 2. Tell younger people that the system won't be there when they need it and so they are unfairly subsidizing the old people, 3. Tell the financial industry and wealthy people that all the money now going into social security will be theirs once changes to privatize it are made, and 4. Make annoying changes around the edges to make people unhappy with the current system (e.g. change retirement age, lower pension amounts, etc.)The Koch funded libertarian groups also have carefully thought out plans to destroy the public schools, all environmental and pollution regulation (including any action on climate change).The big question, of course, is why would anyone want to do this to America. Maclean traces the historical reasons back to the slave-owning south, where libertarians such as John Calhoun defined "freedom" as the freedom to own slaves and treat them in any way they wanted. They worried that democracy would take away their "freedom" and so conceived of ways to reduce and prevent democracy. Modern libertarians such as Buchanen, Milton Friedman, etc. use the same definition of freedom: freedom to exploit others in any way they want. And they want to prevent democracy from stopping them for the same reasons. As detailed in this book, they have also been using the same arguments and methods as were used in the pre-civil war South. Recently, however, they have realized that stealth is required, since most Americans oppose their goals.Finally, a comment on the huge number of negative reviews of MacLean's book on Amazon and elsewhere. The Koch brothers organization is very well organized and extremely well funded, so one expects an all out attack on a book that exposes so much of their stealth program. Most of the attacks just misstate MacLean's points, or make stuff up, and so are typical of the Fox News crowd and easily ignored. But some criticisms seem quite academic and for example say she misquoted sources on purpose to arrive at her conclusions (e.g. about how libertarians mean something different than we do by "freedom": e.g. Cowan says "The freest countries have not generally been democratic.") Careful checking shows that these criticisms also are misstating MacLean intentions, probably in order to stop you from reading the book. For more in depth discussion see historian Andrew Seal's comments on these criticisms.In summary, we are well on the way to the dystopian America the Koch family wants to create. Better read this book quick and figure out how to stop them before it is too late.

Reviewer: Enrique
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: This book exposes a previously little known alliance between libertarian academics and corporate money to provide intellectual cover to policies that undermine democratic norms in the United States. This alliance was brought by ideologues on one side, and very pragmatic wealthy individuals concerned that democracy may lead to higher taxes and reduce their influence in the political sphere. The book is very well-researched and has attracted a lot of attacks against the author. The only critique that I sort of agree with is that the book leaves you with the impression that this particular story explains in its entirety the rise of market fundamentalism and how it has taken over American politics. The author denied this was her intention, but I had this impression even before knowing this was a criticism held by several other people. Nevertheless, this is a highly recommended reading.

Reviewer: AnthonyParis
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: If you want to understand the economic theories that the minority are putting into operation to impoverish the majority, both financially and politically. Where thatcherism and reaganomics lead.

Reviewer: huw
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Absolutely brilliant book, particularly for those like me less familiar with US politics. I am a economist and much of the focus is on Nobel Laureate James Buchanan. However, the real story is the theoretical framework of the minimalist neoliberal state and the attempts to impose it on the American people. To the neoliberals in this book, the state should not be involved in redistribution and individuals should be responsible for their own education, health care and pensions (to name but a few). Over decades, from school vouchers, privatization of public utilities and ending of defined benefit pensions, these policies have been persistently pushed behind the scenes, with a great deal of success. To a foreigner like me, the fuss about Obama care is hard to understand., but now I see why. These neoliberals would prefer people having no healthcare rather than a state funded system. Just as they would prefer private schools to public. The economists James Buchanan played a role in all of this, in reaction to the civil rights movement's attempts to de-segregate schools in Virginia. The bit that is really interesting is the role of the Koch brothers in funding the neoliberal agenda over the decades through a variety of foundations and think tanks (Cato institute etc). As the title of the book indicates, the neoliberal project has found its policies unpopular and has found ways to get around democratic institutions.

Reviewer: Amazon Customer
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Great and essential reading on a topic that should be important to everyone. I am glad I picked this up and and even happier having read it all

Reviewer: shima
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: 共和党は、表向きにはレーガンやギングリッチあたりから急に保守化したように見えるが、その種が蒔かれたのはずっと昔のことであり、John C. Calhounの影響を受け、ノーベル経済学賞を受賞したJames Buchananの存在が大きかった。でも、James Buchananの名前は米国人でも知らないでしょう。本作品でも説明されているとおり、行動がばれないように、影で動く方が都合の良い結果を出せると分かっていたから。チリ政府のアドバイザーとして活躍したことも知られていない。ちなみにJohn C. Calhounの銅像は2020年6月24日に撤去された。レイシストとしても知られていたから。その影響を受けたJames Buchananも、レイシストなところがあったから、2020年であればネット上で叩かれていただろうけど、2013年に死亡。でも彼が築いたシステムは残っている。一番問題なのは、保守系の連邦判事を次々に輩出していること。本作品を読むとその背景がよく分かる。