If Genevieve Valentine has given us an accurate account, Nancy MacLean has written an incredibly bad book on libertarianism. The book is called Democracy in Chains, and according to Valentine, MacLean traces modern libertarianism to none other than James Buchanan, the founder of the Virginia school of economics. Buchanan, we learn, led a 60 -year campaign to make libertarianism mainstream and to take over the government. He wanted to “centralize power in states like Virginia”, she says, when of course he is well-known for his defense of decentralization. He “eschewed empirical research”; has either reviewer or author ever looked at … Continue reading A New Mythology