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Striking Story Which Inter-Relates the Work of the Public Choice Nobel BOOK REVIEWS sit there pleased with yourself for catching striking story which inter-relates the work of the it but not able to eat it (p.417). public choice Nobel Prize-winning economist James Buchanan, the Koch brothers (who are well-known After reading this book you cannot help admiring as financial supporters of libertarianism, and more Warren and his ability to keep getting up when he recently for spending a huge amount of money has been knocked down. His resistance and sense of influencing the Republican Party), and the Tea Party. humour is a characteristic shared by many Aboriginal In addition, she tries to link Buchanan with racism people I have met. Unfortunately, many Australians and entanglement with unsavoury aspects of Virginian have not had the opportunity or taken the time to state politics. She also offers some surprising readings really get to know many Aboriginal people. Warren’s of other scholars, including economist and blogger book therefore serves two purposes. It is not only Tyler Cowen. a story of his life, but also something of a history The book is a strange piece of work. MacLean lesson about the experiences of Aboriginal people obtained access to Buchanan’s papers, and has also in Australia. Readers of this book will definitely be worked in various archives. But she seems to me to the wiser for it. Hopefully they will also come away misunderstand badly what was going on, and she has with a much deeper appreciation and understanding come in for significant criticism for misinterpreting of what it means to be an some of the material on which she relies. (Three useful Aboriginal person in Australia studies are Michael Munger, ‘On the Origins and and the challenges they have had Goals of Public Choice: Constitutional Conspiracy?’,3 to overcome. Brian Doherty, ‘What Nancy MacLean Gets Wrong About James Buchanan’,4 and Henry Farrell and Sara Hudson is a former Steven Teles, ‘Even the Intellectual Left is Drawn to Research Fellow in Conspiracy Theories About the Right. Resist Them’.5) the Indigenous Affairs It might be worthwhile, first, to say something program at The Centre for about the Koch brothers—Charles and David— Independent Studies. and their connections with the Tea Party. (Useful background here are Daniel Schulman’s Sons of Wichita (2014)—to which MacLean refers—and Jane Mayer’s Democracy in Chains: overtly hostile Dark Money (2016)). The Deep History of the Charles Koch is a brilliant entrepreneur who Radical Right’s Stealth built up Koch Industries into a hugely successful Plan for America private company. He has also been a passionate By Nancy MacLean and hardline libertarian, and has put a great deal Scribe, 2017, 368 pages, of money into the support of libertarianism in $35.00 various forms. This involved a range of activities ISBN: (13) 9781925322583 from the political, through public policy work, to the academic, the latter including the funding of the Reviewed by Institute for Humane Studies (IHS) at which I worked Jeremy Shearmur for about five years. In more recent years, under the prompting of a long-term advisor Richard Fink, and ancy MacLean is a respected historian based making use of opportunities for political funding at Duke University in North Carolina. opened up by the Citizens United Supreme Court Her Democracy in Chains has been mostly case (2010), the Kochs have become involved in Nwell-received, especially by those on the political the promotion of activism directed at members of left. (See, for example, Rebecca Onion’s uncritical Congress, and have funded an organisation which interview in Slate1 and the British columnist George played a significant role in supporting the Tea Party. Monbiot’s review ‘A Despot in Disguise: One Man’s From this they moved on to the coordination of Mission to Rip Up Democracy’.2) MacLean tells a high-powered donors to, and to becoming important 60 POLICY • Vol. 33 No. 4 • Summer 2017-2018 BOOK REVIEWS players in, the Republican Party. This has given policy. He was particularly critical of the idea that we them a much higher profile. While their concern should treat government as a benevolent, omniscient has continued to be with liberty, these activities despot, which could be relied upon to act in the have taken them away from their earlier emphasis public interest (for example, in the case of ‘market on libertarianism. failure’). Rather, he and his colleagues thought that MacLean in part argues that Buchanan’s work we should model political institutions and processes plays a key role in this whole story. But here she of all kinds as involving people who acted on the seems to me simply mistaken. Schulman’s well- basis of their own values and concerns. The work researched book on the Koch brothers does not even of public choice theorists involved the creation of mention Buchanan—while those intellectuals who different kinds of explanatory models on such a are mentioned range, rather, from people on the basis. It has highlighted the way in which many anarchist end of the libertarian spectrum, through procedures within democracies can be expected to Ludwig von Mises, to Friedrich Hayek whose lead to unexpected and problematic results, while views about the proper role of the state were more their work on constitutional issues has suggested complex and who gave it a more extensive role. James ways in which some of these problems may Buchanan’s focus was narrowly professional. His be avoided. political views were in some ways close to Hayek’s. With this behind us, let us return to MacLean’s However, while he was sympathetic to classical book. She suggests in part that Buchanan’s work liberalism, his approach was distinctive. (For a useful is the hidden secret behind the Kochs and the Tea overview, see Geoffrey Brennan’s ‘James Buchanan: Party. This is simply incorrect. Buchanan’s Center An Assessment’.6) Indeed, Buchanan was critical of for Study of Public Choice was concerned with inherited wealth, in some ways sympathetic to John technical academic work, and with an outreach Rawls, and (pace MacLean) had misgivings about program for graduate students in economics. The education vouchers because he thought they would ideas of Buchanan and of others associated with give rise to segregation on the basis of class, culture him are interesting and important for those concerned and race. His work was typically of a semi-technical with the study of political science. They are also character, and his key concern was to apply the sort something from which MacLean (who is Pollyanna- of analysis common in neoclassical microeconomics ish about democracy and anything motivated by to the understanding of political phenomena. In the political intentions she favours) could have part, he wished to explain politics; in part to explore learned a lot. But their political thrust is mixed constitutional and organisational arrangements (for example, ideas about ‘rent seeking’ in politics which might improve our existing ways of doing are important as a tool for the critical analysis of things. Buchanan received a Nobel Prize in economics corporate lobbying). for his efforts in these fields. Buchanan’s ‘constitutional political economy’ Work of this kind—Dennis Mueller’s Public Choice would be of little appeal to many libertarians. His III (2003) offers a useful overview—has made its analysis is not based on individual rights, and its mark in both economics and political science. Similar state-focused character has no attraction for the kinds of studies under the label of ‘rational choice’ more anarchist-inclined among them. Buchanan have become very common and are pursued by himself was friendly towards individual libertarian scholars with a wide range of personal and political scholars when he thought that they were doing good views. There has been ongoing controversy about the work, and would sometimes give talks for IHS. But pros and cons of such an approach: Donald Green his focus was very much on his own distinctive and and Ian Shapiro’s Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory quite narrow academic agenda. His Center received (1996) is a lively critique. There are also important support from individuals and foundations, but continuities between Buchanan’s work and Hobbes Koch support seems (from published sources) to and Hume in the history of political thought. have played only a minor role. Buchanan thought that public choice offered an Above all, and here I can speak both on the basis important research program for politics and public of archival and other research as well as personal POLICY • Vol. 33 No. 4 • Summer 2017-2018 61 BOOK REVIEWS experience, while intellectual ideas have played an in which all participants assume important role in the libertarian movement (but much that they may have something less so in more recent lobbying and the Tea Party), the to learn from those with whom key popular influences have been Mises, Ayn Rand they disagree. and to a degree Murray Rothbard. Snippets of ideas from public choice made their way into the wider Jeremy Shearmur is an political vocabulary. But Buchanan’s work would Emeritus Fellow in the have little appeal here either in its character or in its School of Philosophy at political thrust. Brian Doherty’s excellent Radicals the Australian National for Capitalism (2008) mentions that Buchanan once University. spoke to the strongly libertarian Freedom School, and that he participated in some Volker Fund conferences; Endnotes but that is it. 1 http://www.slate.com/articles/life/history/2017/06/ MacLean, however, not only gives Buchanan james_mcgill_buchanan_s_terrifying_vision_of_society_ is_the_intellectual.htm what seems to me a false role in relation to recent 2 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/ political developments, but also tries to smear him jul/19/despot-disguise-democracy-james-mcgill-buchanan- through associations with racism and unsavoury totalitarian-capitalism aspects of Virginian State politics.
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