1. If you follow the various branches threads, there's a good conversation here between @D_Kuehn, @Undercoverhist @Econ_Marshall & others about ongoing debates in history of economics, history of conservatism, & history of racism.https://twitter.com/D_Kuehn/status/1130486961255399424 …
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2. The whole debate reinforces my sense that Nancy Maclean's Democracy In Chains & the reaction to it have been, in the classical sense, tragic: that's to say a conflict where differing sides have legitimate claims but the result is a disaster.
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3. MacLean's book was flawed in the way pioneering works often are: it asked the right questions & brought important evidence to light but also tendentiously overclaimed its arguments & got some things wrong (as
@henryfarrell among other reviewers pointed out).3 replies 3 retweets 17 likesShow this thread -
4. But the reaction to MacLean also felt, to me, like it was tendentious, based often on a desire of historians of economics (and libertarian allies) to protect their turf from encroachment by outsiders (social historians, historians of conservatism).
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5. The fact is that Chicago economics & public choice economics were never purely pristine academic exercises but deeply intertwined modern American right. Figures like Friedman, Stigler & Buchanan were political actors & operators as well as scholars.
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