Munger, Michael
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[### Stealth Attack on Liberal Scholar?
Inside Higher Ed
https://www.insidehighered.com › news › 2017/07/12]
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/07/12/historian-alleges-coordinated-criticism-her-latest-book-which-critical-radical-right
Jul 11, 2017 — MacLean's critics alleging inaccuracies and other problems with her book, MacLean in turn alleging a coordinated attack against her by libertarian scholars.Read more
COllusion, alternative facts, shadowy billionaires: the words sound ripped from the political headlines, but they also describe the controversy surrounding Duke University historian Nancy MacLean’s new book, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America(Viking). And story keeps unfolding, with MacLean’s critics alleging inaccuracies and other problems with her book, MacLean in turn alleging a coordinated attack against her by libertarian scholars with ties to dark money, and others still accusing MacLean of trying to dishonestly promote favorable online book reviews.
MacLean declined comment on the matter through her publisher, which said it hopes discussions will soon return to the content of the book. Her named critics, meanwhile, deny any coordination in their takedowns of her work.
“The allegations she raised are fanciful and potentially libelous,” said David Bernstein, University Professor of law at George Mason University, who recently wrote unflatteringly about MacLean’s book in a post on a blog at The Washington Post. No one “urged me, asked me, beseeched me, paid me or otherwise tried to influence me to blog about the book.”
Some nevertheless say they worry that swarm-style attacks on progressive scholars’ works -- especially in an era of online harassment of professors and plummeting public trust in academe -- could become a new normal. MacLean, they say, is the victim of just such an effort.
There’s “absolutely no question that left-wing scholars and scholarly ideas are under attack,” said Jacob Remes, an historian and clinical assistant professor at New York University's Gallatin School of Individualized Study. Citing a recent pattern of threats against liberal professors, Remes said cases involving even more vulnerable faculty members “show how we need to defend scholarly norms and insist that debates over scholarship remain that -- scholarly debates -- and not become Fox News-like partisan free-for-alls.”
Referring to MacLean’s case in particular -- in which she's asked supporters to police websites for seemingly inauthentic comments about her book, and supporters have called out her critics for not disclosing their ties to anti-regulation, libertarian philanthropist Charles Koch -- Remes added, “Voting down one-star reviews from people who clearly haven't read a book, or asking that beneficiaries of Koch largesse identify themselves as such in reviews, seems a small way of doing that.”
A Book for the Times
MacLean, the William H. Chafe Professor of History and Public Policy at Duke, released her new book last month to immediate praise. Democracy in Chainstraces the roots of capitalist libertarianism -- the kind today embodied and funded by the Koch and his brother, David -- back to the late Nobel Prize-winning economist James McGill Buchanan, who taught at George Mason. Her thesis is that Buchanan was the architect of a long-term plan to take libertarianism mainstream, raze democratic institutions and keep power in the hands of the wealthy, white few.
Unsurprisingly, the book resonated with many critics, who tended to describe it as a book for our time (one NPR review called it "2017 Bingo"). But others began to take issue with MacLean’s scholarship, describing it as another symptom of an alternative facts-driven era. One of the first negative reviews, by Russell Roberts, the John and Jean De Nault Research Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, accused MacLean of deliberating taking out of context the work of Tyler Cowen, the director of the Koch-funded Mercatus Center at George Mason. (Roberts has taught economics at George Mason, a favored campus of the Charles Koch Foundation, whose growing financial influence in academe is well-documented; George Mason accepted nearly $48 million from Koch from 2011 to 2014 alone, according to a 2016 Associated Press report. The university's law school also was last year renamed after the late, conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia as part of a $30 million deal involving funds from Koch and an anonymous donor.)
“She ignores anything in Cowen’s essay that conflicts with her portrayal of Cowen as a sinister enemy of American institutions and democracy,” Roberts wrote, explaining that MacLean had, for example, suggested that Cowen had once written that the free market would be better off with fewer democratic checks and balances. In fact, Cowen had written that while such a change could lead to good outcomes, it could also lead to “very bad” ones.
MacLean responded to Roberts, accusing him of selectively quoting and misrepresenting statements from her own book (and questioning if he actually read it). Ultimately, she asked, “Is it true that Koch-subsidized libertarian scholars, including Buchanan and Cowen, have posed democracy as a problem for their arch version of capitalism?”
:{Soon, though, the criticism came rapid-fire, with a number of academic reviewers with either past or present ties to the Koch Foundation making similar claims against MacLean: misleading quotations; questionable links between people, events and ideas; and a misunderstanding of some of the economic theory underpinning her arguments.
Jonathan Adler, the Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law at Case Western Reserve University and a graduate of George Mason’s law school and one-time visiting professor there, published a running account of the allegations in a Washington Postblog post on the same day Bernstein published his piece in the Post. Soon even MacLean’s Duke colleague Michael C. Munger, a professor of political science, economics and public policy, called her out.}:
In an article for the *Independent Institute*, Munger said MacLean had crafted a well-written but merely speculative history, such as by including imagined conversations between historical figures that come across as real.
“The problem with history, of course, is that many narratives about a few cherry-picked events and documents are ‘plausible,’” he wrote. “The task of the historian is to try to distinguish among plausible accounts ‘through careful sifting of evidence and respectful encounters with opposing points of view.’ There is none of that here. Even a casual familiarity with the basic facts of James Buchanan’s life and scholarship, and of the growth and success of the public choice movement, reveal far simpler, and more plausible, explanations.”
Many of MacLean's supporters question the critics, however, who they argue are offended by a tough look at libertarian heroes.
Ideological Comment War
Apart from the academic reviews, MacLean and others said, anonymous critics were trolling her online, posting uninformed, biased reviews ofDemocracy in Chainson Amazon. In a social media post that MacLean did not authenticate to Inside Higher Ed, but which has been widely shared online by her supporters, she allegedly asked friends and colleagues to help defend her book against an apparent coordinated attack.
“I really, really need your help,” MacLean is said to have written. “This will sound nutty, I know, but it’s actually happening: the Koch operatives and the riders of their academic ‘gravy train,’ as James Buchanan called it, are working very hard to kill Democracy in Chains -- and to destroy my reputation (as they have done to climate change scientists and others bearing inconvenient truth).”
By using thePostblog posts, the note says, critics "make it appear to the ordinary web surfer that the [newspaper] itself is trashing my book when it’s really the Koch team of professors who don’t disclose their conflicts of interest and the operatives who work full-time for their project to shackle our democracy. The other side was getting top placement because their team was clicking and reclicking and sending embedded links, and the velocity of their activity drove up their links.” (It should be noted that the blogs in question are affiliated with the Post, but authors' views are solely their own.)
The note suggests that supporters can help by googling MacLean and her book and clicking on “real” listings to push them above allegedly paid returns, and promoting as "helpful" Amazon reviews that appear authentic. "The operatives are juking the Amazon stats so that their hit jobs (by people who in nearly every case never read the book) come up first by the number of 'helpful' votes," it says. MacLean also warned readers about a propaganda-style wiki page set up by someone with a pseudonym.
“People: this is real,” the post reads. “I won’t be the last they set out to get."
MacLean did not respond to a request for hard evidence of the Amazon review gaming. But there is an unusual preponderance of top five-star and bottom one-star scores forDemocracy in Chains. Back-and-forth-style comments on the reviews abound, amounting to what Connor Gibson, a research associate for Greenpeace, called an "ideological comment war." MacLean’s Wikipedia page already includes much of the controversy surrounding her book.
"They want her publisher to fear promotion, and that's a real threat, since bookstores are also inclined to drop promo efforts if Amazon reviews are low," Gibson said.
Some academics on social media have said that they support MacLean but question asking supporters to police her online reviews. And it appears that the online review police don’t like it either: Fakespot and Trustwerthy, Amazon review authenticity analytics sites, downgraded the book’s rating, to a D and 1.5 stars, respectively.
Still, it’s not hard to imagine that such a close reading of her book by so many scholars with affiliations to Koch -- largely undisclosed in the critiques -- could be some kind of conspiracy.
Asked why he didn’t disclose the fact that he’s received Koch-funded grants within his review of MacLean’s book, Munger said he’s never hidden the relationship (the grants are included on his faculty webpage, for example). Moreover, he said, he wasn’t defending Koch within the piece, just Buchanan.
No Knowledge of Coordination
“I have no knowledge of any coordination” among MacLean’s critics, Munger said. “My interpretation is that MacLean's near total lack of knowledge of basic political science simply independently offended many different people.”
Phillip W. Magness, a historian and former academic program director at the Koch-affiliated Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason, and another of MacLean’s public detractors, said History News Network invited her to respond tohis critique at that site. (She hasn't.) Magness also said he knew of no coordinated attack, “only that Buchanan was a widely respected scholar who she has misrepresented to the point of caricature. It can't be surprising that his many former students, faculty colleagues and friends would scrutinize a book that makes bombastic and conspiratorial charges against him.”
Gibson, the research associate at Greenpeace, tracks Koch-funded higher education programs. The fact that scholars have not cited their ties to Koch while using their academic affiliations to respond to MacLean is a fundamental problem, he said. And given that Koch money is central to MacLean’s narrative, he added, disclosure would matter in any kind of response to the book.
“This is how these guys get away with a guise of independence when their research hits the public realm, or the policy maker's desk,” he said, noting that many of the critiques he’s read focus solely on MacLean's preface -- the least referenced, most dramatized section of the book.
...
Michael Curtis "Mike" Munger (born September 23, 1958)[1] is an economist and a former chair of the political sciencedepartment at Duke University, where he continues to teach political science, public policy, and economics. He is a prolific writer, and his book Analyzing Policy: Choices, Conflicts, and Practices is now a standard work in the field of policy analysis. In 2008 he was the Libertarian candidate for Governor of North Carolina.
Munger earned a B.A. in economics at Davidson College (1980), an M.A. in economics at Washington University in St. Louis (1982), and a Ph.D. in economics at Washington University (1984) for thesis titled Institutions and Outcomes: Two Essays on the Importance of Legislative Structure for Understanding Public Policy. He is a past president of the Public Choice Society. He has been published in the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, and the Journal of Politics and has had books published with the Cambridge University Press and the University of Michigan Press. Since March 2012 he has been a member of the Board of Visitors of Ralston College.[2] He also serves as an Adjunct Scholar at the Cato Institute[3] and as a member of the Academic Council of the Jack Miller Center.[4]
Contents
- :{1:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{Career:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
- :{2:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{Gubernatorial campaign:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
- :{3:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{Political positions:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
- :{4:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{See also:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
- :{5:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{References:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
- :{6:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{External links:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
Career
Munger has worked as a staff economist for the Federal Trade Commission and taught at Dartmouth College, the University of Texas at Austin, and UNC-Chapel Hillbefore becoming a political science professor at Duke University in 1997. In 2000, he became the head of Duke's political science department.[5] His research centers around elections and campaign finance.[6]
At Duke, Munger says he works "across the aisles- there aren't a lot of other Libertarians there."[7]
Three scholars, Melvin Hinich, Douglass North, and Barry Weingast, were reported to be heavily influential to Munger.[8]
Gubernatorial campaign
Munger, feeling that North Carolina voters needed an alternative to the two party duopoly, ran as a Libertarian candidate for Governor of North Carolina in 2008. Early in the year, Munger said that Democratic gubernatorial challenger Bev Perdue was a "Stepford Wife" and the Republican nominees were "circus clowns."[6] Prior to May 2008, the North Carolina Libertarian Party and Munger gathered 100,000 signatures of voters in order to qualify to appear on North Carolina's ballot. They, along with the Green Party, sued the state unsuccessfully over the ballot access rules. Munger appeared as an expert witness in other cases on behalf of the Green Party and theACLU.[6]
Munger appeared as one of two keynote speakers at the national Libertarian convention in Denver in May 2008.[6] He later made history as the first third-party candidate to participate in a live, televised gubernatorial debate in North Carolina.[6]
The progressive Independent Weekly said of Munger: "Were there no substantive differences between the major-party candidates, we'd be recommending a protest vote for Libertarian Party candidate Michael C. Munger, based on the elements of his platform that make him the self-proclaimed 'liberal in the race.'"[7]
On election day Munger received 121,585 votes for 2.85% of the total vote.
Following the election, Nick Gillespie of Reason magazine wrote: "I humbly submit that Duke University political science professor Michael Munger, who ran a strong bid as an Libertarian Party candidate for governor in North Carolina, set his eyes toward an even bigger and remote target in 2012, that stationary Death Star known as theWhite House."[9]
Political positions
Munger has made education a centerpiece of his gubernatorial campaign, saying that allowing more charter schools is the first thing he would do: "Rich people have choices now. I want everyone to have a choice."[10] He would give $1,500 education vouchers to low-income students in the poorest 40 counties of North Carolina; since most would stay in public school, this would have the effect of increasing aid to poor schools.[7]
Munger has taken more socially liberal positions on many issues than the Democratic candidate for governor, Bev Perdue. "One reason I haven't been allowed in all the debates is that I'm taking votes from the Democrats. Sixty percent of my supporters are voting for Obama. I'll talk about gay marriage, and Perdue isn't, or doesn't want to."[5] While Democratic candidate Perdue has taken a hard line on illegal immigration similar to that of Republican Pat McCrory, Munger has a position more aligned with Barack Obama.[11]
Munger is against the death penalty and believes children of illegal immigrants should be allowed into University of North Carolina System schools and community colleges.[7] He believes that the government should do what it can to prevent illegal immigrants from entering the country, but once they are here, they should be treated fairly and given access to education or an "apartheid" will result "with fertile pickings for gang recruitment and exploitation by unscrupulous employers."[7] He believes that more rural roads should be built rather than "urban highways."[7]
Munger wants to decrease the size of government and lower taxes.[7] He opposes the North Carolina Education Lottery and would make income taxes moreprogressive while cutting regressive taxes.[7]
See also
References
- :{Jump up:(style="-webkit-user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ News & Observer profile Archived November 2, 2008, at the Wayback Machine.
- :{Jump up:(style="-webkit-user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ "Ralston College". Retrieved April 7, 2012.
- :{Jump up:(style="-webkit-user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ "Michael Munger". Cato Institute. Retrieved 2015-12-15.
- :{Jump up:(style="-webkit-user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ "Our Staff - Jack Miller Center". Jack Miller Center. Retrieved 2015-12-15.
- ^ :{Jump up to::(style="-webkit-user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^a b(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Munger#cite_ref-reason_5-1) "The Third Man". Reason. 2008-10-27. Retrieved 2008-10-28.
- ^ :{Jump up to::(style="-webkit-user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^a b(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Munger#cite_ref-duke_chronicle_6-1) c(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Munger#cite_ref-duke_chronicle_6-2) d(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Munger#cite_ref-duke_chronicle_6-3) e(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Munger#cite_ref-duke_chronicle_6-4) "The Longshot Candidate". Duke Chronicle. 2008-10-29. Retrieved 2008-11-18.
- ^ :{Jump up to::(style="-webkit-user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^a b(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Munger#cite_ref-indy_weekly_7-1) c(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Munger#cite_ref-indy_weekly_7-2) d(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Munger#cite_ref-indy_weekly_7-3) e(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Munger#cite_ref-indy_weekly_7-4) f(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Munger#cite_ref-indy_weekly_7-5) g(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Munger#cite_ref-indy_weekly_7-6) h(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Munger#cite_ref-indy_weekly_7-7) "Mike Munger: third party, but not a third wheel". Independent Weekly. 2008-10-15. Retrieved 2008-11-25. Cite error: Invalid `` tag; name "indy_weekly" defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- :{Jump up:(style="-webkit-user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ Rowley, Charles K.; Schneider, Friedrich, eds. (2004). "Biographies". *The Encyclopedia of Public Choice* 2. Springer. pp. 376–377. ISBN 9780792386070.
- :{Jump up:(style="-webkit-user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ Gillespie, Nick (2008-11-21) As We Look Past the Next Four Years of Virtually Certain Unmitigated Crapitude, Here's a Couple of Thoughts on Election 2012, Reason
- :{Jump up:(style="-webkit-user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ "McCrory, Perdue differ on charter schools". Charlotte Observer. 2008-10-25. Retrieved 2008-10-28.[dead link]
- :{Jump up:(style="-webkit-user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ "The State of Things: Issues Roundup". WUNC. 2008-10-28. Retrieved 2008-10-28.
External links
- Munger's Academic Website (Duke University)
- Duke University PPE Program C.V.
- Weigel, David (2008-10-27) The Third Man, Reason
- News & Observer: Professor seeks ballot spot
- Munger Campaign website
- Short Essay by Michael Munger in Imagineer magazine on the 2008 housing collapse.
- Roberts, Russ. "Mike Munger Podcasts". EconTalk. Library of Economics and Liberty.
- Michael Munger at Goodreads
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- People from Orange County, Florida
- People from Raleigh, North Carolina
- Washington University in St. Louis alumni
Michael C. Munger - Professor at Duke University
www.michaelmunger.com/
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Mar 20, 2016 5:51:08 AM. Nov 18: Talk to the JB Duke Students. Price Gouging: Just, or Just Wrong? 7 PM, Smith Warehouse, Bay 8. Nov 22, 2015 11:04:40 AM.
Michael Munger - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Munger
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Wikipedia
Michael Curtis "Mike" Munger (born September 23, 1958) is an economist and a former chair of the political science department at Duke University, where he ...
Career · Gubernatorial campaign · Political positions · See also
[PDF]Michael C. Munger Director, PPE Program, Duke University ...
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Duke University
Michael C. Munger. Director, PPE Program, Duke University. Professor; Political Science Department,Duke University. Economics Department, Duke University ...
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBuQUpvZOs8
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Jun 27, 2011 - Uploaded by John Locke Foundation
Dr. Michael Munger, professor and chairman of the Department of Political Science and professor of ...
Michael Munger (@mungowitz) | Twitter
https://twitter.com/mungowitz
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The latest Tweets from Michael Munger (@mungowitz). Director of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Program at Duke University. Oh, and retweets are not ...
Michael C. Munger | Cato Unbound
www.cato-unbound.org/contributors/michael-c-munger
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Michael C. Munger is a professor of political science, public policy, and economics at Duke University. He has previously worked as a staff economist at the ...
Ryan Munger Bio - Duke University Blue Devils | Official Athletics Site ...
www.goduke.com/ViewArticle.dbml?ATCLID=204848505
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Duke Blue Devils
The son of Alan and Michele Munger ... Has a brother, Reid ... Great uncle, George Munger, pitched 10 years in the majors with the St. Louis Cardinals and ...
Michael Munger | Cato Institute
www.cato.org/people/michael-munger
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Cato Institute
Michael Munger is professor and department chair of political science at Duke University. His research interests include the study of ideology, legislative ...
Mike Munger Archives | EconTalk | Library of Economics and Liberty
www.econtalk.org/archives/_featuring/mike_munger/
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EconTalk
Michael Munger of Duke University makes his 29th appearance on the 500th episode of EconTalk alongside EconTalk host Russ Roberts. He talks about his ...