Democracy in Chains

Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America is a 2017 nonfiction book by Nancy MacLean published by Viking Press. MacLean critically examines the school of economic thinking known as "public choice", focusing on its founder James M. Buchanan, who received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 1986. According to MacLean, Buchanan's work has had a significant influence on the libertarian movement and in the US Republican Party, including the political activities of the Koch brothers.

MacLean argues that Buchanan believed democracy must be suppressed for capitalism to flourish, which explains why the right wing, funded behind the scenes by secretive dark money networks, engages in anti-democratic behavior and policy-making, such as opposing unions and Social Security, supporting voter suppression and privatization, and placing impenetrable barriers to popular and social democracy. The book was a finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction. Reviewers received it mostly along partisan political lines.