MacLean, however, doesn't want to explain how public choice economists think and argue. Instead, she portrays them as participants in a far-reaching conspiracy. She describes how a movement of ”fifth columnists" that ”congratulated itself on its ability to carry out a revolution beneath the radar of prying eyes" is looking to fundamentally undermine American democracy. She uses cloak-and-dagger language to suggest that she was only able to uncover the key files explaining what was going on because someone failed to lock ”one crucial door" to a half-deserted building on George Mason University's campus. (George Mason is the site of an unlisted and then-disorganized archive of Buchanan's papers.)
In language better suited to a Dan Brown novel than a serious nonfiction book, she describes Buchanan as an ”evil genius," and suggests he had a ”diabolical" plan to permanently ”shackle" democracy, so that the will of the majority would no longer influence government in core areas of the economy. In MacLean's account, Buchanan, who won the Nobel Prize for his work on the contractual and constitutional bases of decision-making but is nearly unknown to the public, prepared the plan that the Koch brothers and other conservative funders and activists have been carrying out ever since.
While some on the left have hailed the book, libertarians and conservatives have attacked it online. Several have argued that MacLean misleadingly truncates quotes, to make it seem as if Buchanan and other libertarians such as Tyler Cowen are anti-democratic. While they obviously have a great deal of skin in the game, their critiques of the book have landed a number of solid blows.
For instance, when MacLean claims that Cowen is providing ”a handbook for how to conduct a fifth column assault on democracy," she cites as evidence Cowen's statement that ”the weakening of checks and balances would increase the chance of a very good outcome." Unfortunately, she declines to provide the reader with the second half of the sentence, which goes on to note that ”it would also increase the chance of a very bad outcome." Nor, as she has claimed in interview, is the title of Cowen's blog Marginal Revolution a signal to the illuminated that Cowen is undertaking a gradual revolution by stealth (it's actually a well-known term for the birth of modern economics).
She accuses David Boaz, executive vice president of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, of believing that ”close to half of American society is intent on exploiting the rich" when he writes about a ”parasite economy" of predators and prey. In fact, the predators Boaz is talking about are specific interests lobbying for subsidies, tariffs, quotas, or trade restrictions. While his claims can be contested, they are simply not what MacLean says they are.
MacLean's critics on the right also argue that there is little to no evidence supporting her most important arguments, and some of her most trenchant examples. There is no strong evidence that Buchanan was motivated to rein in state power because he opposed Brown v. Board of Education, for instance, or helped Pinochet design his authoritarian constitution, despite MacLean's insinuations to the contrary.
Those on the left might be inclined to think that the libertarian and conservative critics of the book are lashing out, or overemphasizing a few errors, because MacLean has revealed the dark side of one of their heroes and the unsavory modern history of their movement. Or alternatively, as MacLean has publicly claimed is the case, one might see this criticism as a counter-campaign by ”Koch operatives" aimed at discrediting her. Yet while we do not share Buchanan's ideology — and we would love to read a trenchant critical account of the origins of public choice — we think the broad thrust of the criticism is right. MacLean is not only wrong in detail but mistaken in the fundamentals of her account.
