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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.
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.
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).
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).
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.
6. Even if you disagree with MacLean's conclusions, it's important to acknowledge that her project (integrating history of economics with history of political movements, backed by archival research) needs to be done. I hope future scholars continue down this path.
