"..Architect Behind America's Racist Economics". The Holy Grail is the US Constitution

[Budi]

Not sure where to preserve this for later reading, but it is a story of how the James McGill Buchanan & the Libertarian Kochs manipulated the US to where we are today.
I wasn't aware of the depth of deceit. But reading it, all makes absolute sense once you know the players.
Its quite a read.

From Article, 2018
Meet the Hidden Architect Behind America's Racist Economics

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
More...

SNIP
In 1965 the economist launched a center dedicated to his theories at the University of Virginia, which later relocated to George Mason University. MacLean describes how he trained thinkers to push back against the Brown v. Board of Education decision to desegregate America’s public schools and to challenge the constitutional perspectives and federal policy that enabled it. She notes, that he took care to use economic and political precepts, rather than overtly racial arguments, to make his case, which nonetheless gave cover to racists who knew that spelling out their prejudices would alienate the country.

SNIP
Buchanan wanted a private governing elite of corporate power that was wholly released from public accountability.

Suppressing voting, changing legislative processes so that a normal majority could no longer prevail, sowing public distrust of government institutions— all these were tactics toward the goal. But the Holy Grail was the Constitution: alter it and you could increase and secure the power of the wealthy in a way that no politician could ever challenge.

Gravy Train to Oligarchy

MacLean explains that Virginia’s white elite and the pro-corporate president of the University of Virginia, Colgate Darden, who had married into the DuPont family, found Buchanan’s ideas to be spot on.

More....
And on to the Kochs....
*********


Here' the gist of the article:

Link to tweet

[underpants]

1. George Mason is a good place for it.

This kind of post last longer in Op/Editorials forum.

I’m making this to read it later. Thanks. I’d never heard of him.

[Budi]

3. Me neither! How McLean finally accessed his papers was a gift to readers.

Isn't George Mason where people like Bill Barr come from?

I have sent it to my journal & bookmarked it cuz there is a lot in this article.
That their manipulation has made it all the way to this day, where we stare at the severity of such thought, coming into our view, is something everyone should know of.

Thanks

[underpants]

6. Mason is very conservative in economics and poli sci

probably other fields too.

Barr went to Geo. Washington Law also in the DC area.

[erronis]

14. George Mason has become a cesspool of RW ideologies. Used to be a school for after-work

government employees trying to beef up their credentials (MBAs) to improve their career rankings. Convenient to the DC suburbs.

It may have been started with an initial goal of fostering RW thought but more likely it started to bring in more neocons and libertarians over time. Obviously training mid-level management in crap like this will intentionally do harm to a well-functioning democracy.

[alwaysinasnit]

2. k&r for visibility. Thanks for posting Budi!

[Budi]

4. As I read this, I could point to historical events in my political lifetime, that made more sense...

...more sense, as in connected some missing dots.
A sinister & calculated vision of a world order where only the few at the very elite top would be preserved.
All other Human life was disposable.

I see why Trump was a chosen player, he has the cold sociopathy necessary to close the deal.

[alwaysinasnit]

5. "All other Human life was disposable." I agree, the only caveat being that the elite will still need

at least some peons and professionals to care for their needs. Who is going to clean their toilets and diagnose their illnesses?

[Budi]

7. Oh they address the slave class.

[ProfessorGAC]

8. Buchanan Is Slime

And his economic "theories" have been wholly debunked with the data of what actually happened.
He's a beneficiary of the Peter Principle.

[Budi]

11. Yet it's taught at George Mason. Follow up to the session on Ayn Rand

Yes, It is sick.

[lonely bird]

12. George Mason's economics dept. is bought and paid for

It is a shill for libertarian, anti-democracy horseshit.

[jaxexpat]

18. A rationale relying on Ayn Rand's philosophies and employing Trump to "close the deal"?

It's a recipe for failure at every turn. Trump's too stupid to close his own lavatory door and Rand so vacuous that profundity always fled the room as she entered. There's more legitimacy in the teachings of Prabhupada, the Krisna guy, than the whole of this time worn and torn carnival of escapism we're concerned about as a realistic threat to American democracy. Well, dust out the Granger halls and let's do a movement to counter this hotbed of east coast elitism before it evolves into a tasty populous morsel.

[jmbar2]

9. Nancy McLean's "Democracy in Chains"

The whole book is great. Eye opening about so many of the peculiarities of American policy and politics.

[murielm99]

16. I agree.

Great book. I bought it just so I could refer to it again.

[BComplex]

10. There are some truly evil people in this world.

I wish the rest of us didn't have to share our air and water on this planet with them.

[ancianita]

13. MacLean's book should've been required reading across the country since 2017.

James M Buchanan is the godfather, the U of C Economics Department is the executive producer of minority rule economics and politics, and George Mason is the training school and Charles Koch is the Big Money behind it all from the very beginning.

[bucolic_frolic]

15. Conservative economists are front men for the depraved .nt

[plimsoll]

17. That makes it sound like they are not depraved themselves.

They may be the front men, but they're the depraved frontmen. It's too bad that organized religions seem to associate evil with ugly, it lets evil hide better.

[cksmithy]

19. I got my college BA degree in 2000, teacher credential took another year or so.

I started college in my late 40's. I took American history and geography for liberal arts degree to teach elementary school. In every history, geography class I took, the professors made a point that they could not not teach what really happened historically until we were in doctorate classes. I taught for 10 years then retired.

[hedda_foil]

20. "Each person seeks mastery over a world of slaves," he wrote in his 1975 book, The Limits of Liberty

[dchill]

21. K&R. Obscenely wealthy sick racists.