Democracy in Chains

The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America

By: Nancy MacLean

Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne

Length: 11 hrs and 32 mins

Publisher's summary

Winner of the Lillian Smith Book Award

Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize

Finalist for the National Book Award

The Nation's "Most Valuable Book"

“[A] vibrant intellectual history of the radical right.” (The Atlantic)

“This sixty-year campaign to make libertarianism mainstream and eventually take the government itself is at the heart of Democracy in Chains.... If you're worried about what all this means for America's future, you should be.” (NPR)

An explosive exposé of the right's relentless campaign to eliminate unions, suppress voting, privatize public education, stop action on climate change, and alter the Constitution.

Behind today's headlines of billionaires taking over our government is a secretive political establishment with long, deep, and troubling roots. The capitalist radical right has been working not simply to change who rules but to fundamentally alter the rules of democratic governance. But billionaires did not launch this movement; a white intellectual in the embattled Jim Crow South did. Democracy in Chains names its true architect—the Nobel Prize-winning political economist James McGill Buchanan—and dissects the operation he and his colleagues designed over six decades to alter every branch of government to disempower the majority.

In a brilliant and engrossing narrative, Nancy MacLean shows how Buchanan forged his ideas about government in a last-gasp attempt to preserve the white elite's power in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education. In response to the widening of American democracy, he developed a brilliant, if diabolical, plan to undermine the ability of the majority to use its numbers to level the playing field between the rich and powerful and the rest of us.

Corporate donors and their right-wing foundations were only too eager to support Buchanan's work in teaching others how to divide America into "makers" and "takers". And when a multibillionaire on a messianic mission to rewrite the social contract of the modern world, Charles Koch, discovered Buchanan, he created a vast, relentless, and multiarmed machine to carry out Buchanan's strategy.

Without Buchanan's ideas and Koch's money, the libertarian right would not have succeeded in its stealth takeover of the Republican Party as a delivery mechanism. Now, with Mike Pence as vice president, the cause has a longtime loyalist in the White House, not to mention a phalanx of Republicans in the House, the Senate, a majority of state governments, and the courts, all carrying out the plan. That plan includes harsher laws to undermine unions, privatizing everything from schools to health care and Social Security, and keeping as many of us as possible from voting. Based on 10 years of unique research, Democracy in Chains tells a chilling story of right-wing academics and big money run amok. This revelatory work of scholarship is also a call to arms to protect the achievements of 20th-century American self-government.

©2017 Nancy MacLean (P)2017 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"[A] remarkably important book...this book is a superb contribution to our understanding of the rise of libertarian notions and right-wing political power in the US. If you wonder how the Supreme Court came to define speech as money or corporations as people, this volume will help you to figure it out.... The melting ice caps, if nothing else, stand as testament to the folly of listening mainly to the rich and powerful." (Bill McKibben, The Times Literary Supplement)

"Democracy in Chains leaves me with hope: Perhaps as books like MacLean’s continue to shine a light on important truths, Americans will begin to realize they need to pay more attention and not succumb to the cynical view that known liars make the best leaders." (New York Times Book Review)

"A remarkable new book which argues that the radical right revolution engineered by Charles and his brother David is not just about accruing political and economic power, but about restricting democracy itself." (The New Republic)

The Anti-Democracy Efforts of the 1%

Must reading for all Americans who believe in a functional democracy which acts in the interest of the common person. The author tracks the history of the right wing attack on functional democracy back to mid-20th century Virginia which saw in the Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education a threat to state's rights and the power structure first established through and for slavery and defended by John C. Calhoun against the interest of the majority of Americans.
Through a perverse line of thinking, the philosophical descendants of the slaveholding class describe their actions as protecting liberty. Their actions make it clear that they do not care about the liberty of the many but only the liberty to use their outsized power through the money and property they have obtained to rule over the rest of us.
They fear any organization of Americans that seeks to expand the rights of all Americans, especially labor unions, and seek to destroy them. Their final goal is to rewrite the U.S. Constituion so that the U.S. government is limited to protecting property rights and not much more.
Similar action by extremely wealthy Americans at the start of the 20th century almost led to a revolution in this country during the Great Depression that could have resulted in our becoming a fascist society, not unlike Germany, or communist society, not unlike the Soviet Union.
Again, we are coming to a crossroads where the very nature of our nation is in question. Let's hope this book and books like it ensure that we move in the right direction.

Important book exposing a big problem

There are a lot of details in the first half and it can be hard to get through, but it is important to understand the roots of the cancer. The last half exposes the frightening reality that is facing us now. You could read the second half first and get the background after getting punched in the face by the truth of what is happening to our country.

the truth exposed .

Finally some well researched light shining into the festering wound that is the current state of the USA political system.

Terrific book!

I learned a lot from this book. It details the history of Libertarianism, its underlying rational and who it favors. It is a must read book.

A True Nightmare

History can be very dry and so was the robotic voice of the narrator. However as history (in this book) began to unfold and the narrator became more comfortable, reality came to light resulting in a very real nightmare. This book is a ‘must read’ for every concerned United States citizen on the future of democracy!

exposing libertarian economics for what it is

fascinating read, explains how the right have been so successful at pushing policy despite the unpopularity of their ideas

To the barricades!

Informative. Explains a lot. Leaves me feeling the body politic has cancer. Please get the word out.

Behind the curtains of the modern Republican Party

Although I am a lifelong liberal I grew up in South Texas surrounded by conservatives and Republicans including my own family. I have discussed and debated politics with many conservatives over the years. I have really noticed a change in the Republican way of addressing and dealing with problems, especially legislatively over the last twenty five years, This book really drew back the curtain on the game plan that started in the 1950's and slowly and steadily evolved. James Buchanan, a somewhat Libertarian economist, felt like the federal governments abilities to legislate around everything from civil rights environmental regulations and especially taxation far exceeded the preferences of many on the far right despite it being within the parameters of the Constitution. The real fear is that the majority of citizens might impose their will legislatively on the wealthy and powerful, a minority, with progressive taxation, social programs and regulations as happened in The New Deal and the Great Society years. In a largely low profile, hidden from public view strategy and with the help of billionaires like the Koch brothers and conservative think tanks they begin a systematic plan to change legislation and the judiciary from municipal, county, state and federal levels largely via lobbying and the American Legislative Exchange Council, otherwise known as ALEC . One of the overriding themes is staying in power by any means necessary. It explains a lot about McConnell's years long obstruction of most of Obama's federal judicial nominees, no matter how qualified, and culminating in the Merrick Garland blockade and recent Barrett ramming through. That is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. I also went through Stuart Stevens "It Was All a Lie" and I am working on "The Impostors" currently. All of these books show the same thing from different perspectives. Historically we have expected our governments to attempt to help solve problems of the American people. I believe Republicans have largely walked away from that. A lot of the focus is now on on tribalism and maintaining power. They have much less interest in policy and legislation now. The Republican Party did not even have a platform for 2020 for the first time in GOP history. Watch what they do not what they say.

Must read, must share

Excellent and necessary information for anyone in the US.

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Revealing Account of the Origins of Libertarianism

This is a necessary and terrifying book that details the racist and authoritarian history of Libertarianism and its Billionaire promoters. The chapters on their so called experiments in Chile show the dark future these people want for America. Motivating and a great companion to "Dark Money" and "The Shadow Network".