The Ideologues Who Want to Destroy Democracy to Save Capitalism

[applegrove]

http://billmoyers.com/story/more-deep-history-radical-right/

"SNIP...........


He aimed, in short, to save capitalism from democracy.

In 1980, he was able to put the program into action. He was invited to Chile, where he helped the Pinochet dictatorship write a new constitution, which, partly through the clever devices Buchanan proposed, has proved impossible to reverse entirely. Amid the torture and killings, he advised the government to extend programs of privatization, austerity, monetary restraint, deregulation and the destruction of trade unions: a package that helped trigger economic collapse in 1982.

None of this troubled the Swedish Academy, which through his devotee at Stockholm University Assar Lindbeck in 1986 awarded James Buchanan the Nobel memorial prize for economics. It is one of several decisions that have turned this prize toxic.

But his power really began to be felt when Koch, currently the seventh richest man in the US, decided that Buchanan held the key to the transformation he sought. Koch saw even such ideologues as Milton Friedman and Alan Greenspan as ‘sellouts’, as they sought to improve the efficiency of government rather than destroy it altogether. But Buchanan took it all the way.

…The papers Nancy MacLean discovered show that Buchanan saw stealth as crucial. He told his collaborators that ‘conspiratorial secrecy is at all times essential.’ Instead of revealing their ultimate destination, they would proceed by incremental steps. For example, in seeking to destroy the social security system, they would claim to be saving it, arguing that it would fail without a series of radical ‘reforms.’ (The same argument is used by those attacking the NHS). Gradually they would build a ‘counter-intelligentsia,’ allied to a ‘vast network of political power’ that would become the new establishment.


............SNIP"

[JHan]

1. A lot of libertarians are upset about this book.

I drink their tears.

I haven't read it yet but I intend to.

[Gabi Hayes]

12. Concerted attack on her at the Wapo, spearheaded

by a crackpot George Mason U "economist," who gave it a bad review

Just google the title and see what comes up

It's like going to reddit

[JHan]

13. The way Koch Academia is coming together in condemnation speaks volumes ...

I read a critique of the book on Vox but I'm still gonna buy it...I don't think the Koch network remembered the Streisand effect.

[Gabi Hayes]

14. That's a great oxymoron!

GMU: the pentagon of wing nut economics

Heard that somewhere

Tons and tons of Koch money made it the joke U it is today

[Gabi Hayes]

15. Wow! The loons are scared shirtless about this book!

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=gmu+democracy+in+chains&t=ipod&ia=web

Almost every review is foaming garbage in defense of reality

Hey geebs:

Try to explain how the hallowed Chicago boys destroyed the Chilean economy

For starters

[asiliveandbreathe]

2. applegrove...you are trying - I picked up on this story two nights ago -

What the hell is it going to take for people to sit up and take notice - Democracy In Chains by Nancy Maclean is a must read..as someone pointed out to me today - it is also available in audio....

Even if people read the reviews - they can walk away with a sense of what the hell is happening..

I commend you...thank you

This is the thread I created this AM -

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029348898

[applegrove]

3. Should I delete? Or leave it up for the late comers?

[asiliveandbreathe]

4. NO you shouldn't delete your thread - leave for late comers...

I would think it goes to greatest threads...you do so much for everyone..thank you....

[applegrove]

5. Thanks.

[applegrove]

7. Sometimes I zone out when skimming the already posted articles of the day.

Last edited Fri Jul 21, 2017, 12:02 AM - Edit history (1)

I need to double down my focus.

[mitch96]

6. "Ideologues Who Want to Destroy Democracy to Save Capitalism"

Right off the top of my head I'm thinking Hitler.... Everything was about duping the people so that the corporations could make him his war machine....
m

[lostnfound]

8. Kick for later read nt

[Achilleaze]

9. "...seeking to destroy the social security system"

republicans will disembowel Social Security and find a way to transfer massive amounts of money to already rich republicans. D'oh.

Can't you see the Inevitable Screw-Job KGOP train coming?

[dalton99a]

10. Great article.

[Gabi Hayes]

11. Finally!!!!! I've been pushing this to zero response

since I saw her with Amy goodman

Buchanan was a true monster, as are his most powerful acolytes

We are in mortal peril

Sounds histrionic, but if they get that constitutional convention, we are toast