The context is their discussion of the costs of various sets of rules: Below I reprint the relevant passages in TCoC so you can make up your own mind as to how accurately MacLean has represented Buchanan and Tullock. But it was enough to make me want to check the source. Note first that what was once the constitution he thought was “closer to the ideal” has now become his “ideal.” A minor bit of slippery phrasing, but not a huge sin. She then writes (228) “Had Buchanan’s ideal system of 1900 endured at the national level…” followed by a list of horrors that the Great Depression “might well” have engendered. MacLean wants to claim that this is the world Buchanan and friends want to recreate today. She then goes on to catalog the problems of 1900, some of which are legitimate concerns of course, such as Jim Crow. “ and his co-author Gordon Tullock said that the nation’s decision-making rules were closer to “the ‘ideal’ in 1900 than in 1960.”” She writes (227), with the quote being from The Calculus of Consent: of wanting to go back to a 19th century view of the constitution that she finds horrific. For example, consider the following passage in which she accuses Buchanan et. Those are what matter for judging the intellectual quality of this book.Ī quick Google search will turn up dozens of links comparing MacLean’s text with that of her source material, demonstrating her errors of fact and interpretation, and her limited understanding of the theories she is criticizing. Many of us have offered textual specifics, as I do below, demonstrating the flaws of the book. However, claiming those connections are reason to dismiss this review, and that of other Buchanan and public choice scholars, is to commit the ad hominem fallacy. Over that time, a very small fraction of my income has been from Koch-sponsored organizations. I also was a student of Jim Buchanan’s in the mid-80s and I have a 30 year career as a professional economist and scholar of libertarian ideas. Unlike some of the negative reviewers, and many of the positive ones, I have read the entire book cover to cover. The result is a fun story, but one that bears little resemblance to the truth. She also offers reports on people and events that are contradicted by those involved and publicly available facts. MacLean’s book is, in the words of Duke political scientist Mike Munger, a work of “speculative historical fiction.” Quotes are mangled and chopped to convey a meaning precisely the opposite meant by the authors, articles are misunderstood, arguments are distorted beyond recognition, and she is unable to understand the intellectual project of Buchanan and public choice theory.

Democracy in chains book