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With Reagan, deliverance seemed possible. Buchanan’s political influence reached its zenith. By this time, he had left the University of Virginia. As early as 1963, there were concerns—on the part of the dean of the faculty, for one—that Buchananism, at least as practiced at his Thomas Jefferson Center, had petrified into dogma, with no room for dissenting voices. After a battle over a promotion for his co-author, Tullock, Buchanan left in a huff. He went first to UCLA, next to Virginia Tech, and in 1983, climactically, to George Mason University, not far outside the Beltway—and much nearer to the political action. The Wall Street Journal soon labeled George Mason “the Pentagon of conservative academia.” With its “stable of economists who have become an important resource for the Reagan administration,” it was now poised to undo Great Society programs. In 1986, Buchanan won the Nobel Prize for his public-choice theory.

But triumph gave way again to disappointment. Not even Reagan could stem the collectivist tide. Public-choice ideas made a difference—for instance in the balanced-budget act sponsored by Senators Philip Gramm, Warren Rudman, and Ernest Hollings in 1985. Buchanan’s theory found another useful ally in the budget-slasher and would-be government-shrinker David Stockman, who idolized Hayek and declared that “politicians were wrecking American capitalism.” But Stockman also discovered that restoring capitalism to a purer condition would mean declaring war on “Social Security recipients, veterans, farmers, educators, state and local officials, the housing industry.” What president was going to do that? Certainly not Reagan. As Stockman reflected, “The democracy had defeated the doctrine.”

That was Buchanan’s view, too. It wasn’t enough to elect true-believing politicians. The rules of government needed to be rewritten. But this required ideal conditions—a blank slate. This had happened once, in Chile, after Augusto Pinochet’s coup against the socialist Salvador Allende in 1973. A vogue for public choice had swept Pinochet’s administration. Buchanan’s books were translated, and some of his acolytes helped restructure Chile’s economy. Labor unions were banned, and social security and health care were both privatized. On a week-long visit in 1980, Buchanan gave formal lectures to “top representatives of a governing elite that melded the military and the corporate world,” MacLean reports, and he dispensed counsel in private conversations. But Buchanan said very little about his part in assisting Chile’s reformers—and he said very little, too, when the country’s economy cratered, and Pinochet at last fired the Buchananites.

At his death in 2013, Buchanan was hardly known outside the world of economists and libertarians, but his ideology remains much in force. His view of Social Security—a “Ponzi scheme”—is shared by privatizers like Paul Ryan. More broadly, Buchananism informs the conviction on the right that because the democratic majority can’t really be trusted, empowered minorities, like the Freedom Caucus, are the true guardians of our liberty and if necessary will resort to drastic measures: shutting down the government, defaulting on the national debt, and plying the techniques of what Francis Fukuyama calls our modern “vetocracy”—refusing, for example, to bring an immigration bill to a House vote lest it pass (as happened in the Obama years) or, in the Senate, defying tradition by not granting a confirmation hearing to a Supreme Court nominee.

To see all this as simple obstructionism, perversity for its own sake, is a mistake. A cause lies behind it: upholding the sanctity of an ideology against the sins of the majority. This is what drives House Republicans to scale back social programs, or to shift the tax burden from the 1 percent onto the parasitic mob, or to come up with a health-care plan that would leave Trump’s own voters out in the cold. To many of us, it might seem heartless. But far worse, Buchanan once explained in a famous essay, is misguided Good Samaritanism, which, by helping the unlucky, cushions them against the consequences of their bad choices. This is exactly the sentiment voiced by the House Republican who voted to strip away Obamacare and then explained that the new proposal, which punishes people with preexisting medical conditions, has the advantage of “reducing the cost to those people who lead good lives.”


https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ar ... 1-UqX30Z2Q

kalm wrote: ↑Sun Mar 01, 2020 6:37 am Very interesting review. The cult of the Chicago School.....

With Reagan, deliverance seemed possible. Buchanan’s political influence reached its zenith. By this time, he had left the University of Virginia. As early as 1963, there were concerns—on the part of the dean of the faculty, for one—that Buchananism, at least as practiced at his Thomas Jefferson Center, had petrified into dogma, with no room for dissenting voices. After a battle over a promotion for his co-author, Tullock, Buchanan left in a huff. He went first to UCLA, next to Virginia Tech, and in 1983, climactically, to George Mason University, not far outside the Beltway—and much nearer to the political action. The Wall Street Journal soon labeled George Mason “the Pentagon of conservative academia.” With its “stable of economists who have become an important resource for the Reagan administration,” it was now poised to undo Great Society programs. In 1986, Buchanan won the Nobel Prize for his public-choice theory.

Ivytalk wrote: ↑Sun Mar 01, 2020 7:09 am Klammy, I commend your resourcefulness in finding a 2017 book review by a flaming progressive that praises the work of another flaming progressive whose “scholarship” has been debunked by half the academic community. Google Nancy MacLean and see for yourself.

kalm wrote: ↑Sun Mar 01, 2020 7:27 am

Ivytalk wrote: ↑Sun Mar 01, 2020 7:09 am Klammy, I commend your resourcefulness in finding a 2017 book review by a flaming progressive that praises the work of another flaming progressive whose “scholarship” has been debunked by half the academic community. Google Nancy MacLean and see for yourself.

And the other half loved it. I’d ask for a ruling from one of our resident centrists but I have a concern the article might hurt thinly veiled radical right wing economic feelings.

Baldy wrote: ↑Sun Mar 01, 2020 4:01 pm A radical leftist "progsplaining" for us.

This gave me a good chuckle, than you.

UNI88 wrote: ↑Sun Mar 01, 2020 2:47 pm

kalm wrote: ↑Sun Mar 01, 2020 7:27 am

And the other half loved it. I’d ask for a ruling from one of our resident centrists but I have a concern the article might hurt thinly veiled radical right wing economic feelings.

I haven't googled Nancy McLean but there is some truth to the article. Of course, that truth also applies to the opposite approach proposed by Bernie, Lizzie and Trip.

kalm wrote: ↑Sun Mar 01, 2020 5:00 pm

Baldy wrote: ↑Sun Mar 01, 2020 4:01 pm A radical leftist "progsplaining" for us.

This gave me a good chuckle, than you.

* thank

kalm wrote: ↑Sun Mar 01, 2020 7:27 am

Ivytalk wrote: ↑Sun Mar 01, 2020 7:09 am Klammy, I commend your resourcefulness in finding a 2017 book review by a flaming progressive that praises the work of another flaming progressive whose “scholarship” has been debunked by half the academic community. Google Nancy MacLean and see for yourself.

And the other half loved it. I’d ask for a ruling from one of our resident centrists but I have a concern the article might hurt thinly veiled radical right wing economic feelings.

Winterborn wrote: ↑Tue Mar 03, 2020 8:33 am

kalm wrote: ↑Sun Mar 01, 2020 7:27 am

And the other half loved it. I’d ask for a ruling from one of our resident centrists but I have a concern the article might hurt thinly veiled radical right wing economic feelings.

Well half of the population is below average.

houndawg wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 11:14 am

Winterborn wrote: ↑Tue Mar 03, 2020 8:33 am

Well half of the population is below average.

Half the population is below the median.

Winterborn wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 2:05 pm

houndawg wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 11:14 am




Half the population is below the median.

Just trying to use language my audience would understand.


And in a normal distribution (world population is greater than 30) median and mean are the same.

Ivytalk wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 2:26 pm

Winterborn wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 2:05 pm


Just trying to use language my audience would understand.


And in a normal distribution (world population is greater than 30) median and mean are the same.

JSO paging madly through statistics textbook....

Winterborn wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 2:27 pm

Ivytalk wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 2:26 pm

JSO paging madly through statistics textbook....

I would expect for him to know this stuff off the top of his head.

Winterborn wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 2:05 pm

houndawg wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 11:14 am




Half the population is below the median.

Just trying to use language my audience would understand.


And in a normal distribution (world population is greater than 30) median and mean are the same.

houndawg wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 8:25 pm

Winterborn wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 2:05 pm


Just trying to use language my audience would understand.


And in a normal distribution (world population is greater than 30) median and mean are the same.

you underestimate these guys

Winterborn wrote: ↑Thu Mar 05, 2020 12:46 pm

houndawg wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 8:25 pm

you underestimate these guys

We are talking about Kalm here.

Winterborn wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 2:05 pm

houndawg wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2020 11:14 am




Half the population is below the median.

Just trying to use language my audience would understand.


And in a normal distribution (world population is greater than 30) median and mean are the same.