A few people have noted (correctly) that Nancy MacLean stated that she was quoting from a draft of “Afraid to be Free”. Since this was so, some (well, one person!) have claimed that my response to her was unfair.

Now, it’s true that MacLean said that she was quoting from the first draft of this paper. But she immediately afterwards stated that this draft was “later published as in Public Choice 120, no. 3 (September 2004).”

Three points are worth noting here:

1) If one refers to a draft, and if this draft changes before the published version, it is standard practice both to note this, and (preferably) include in the bibliography separate references to both drafts. MacLean doesn’t do either of these. This is why I took her to mean that he first draft was the published draft–which is what she herself writes. I thus didn’t misread her endnote. I merely took her at her word–that the draft she referred to as “later published in Public Choice” under the same title.

2) It is standard practice to refer to a person’s published views, as these are understood to be the views that he or she stands by. Even if MacLean’s quotation of Buchanan’s first draft is correct, and if he did not mention other persons besides the former slaves, this tells us nothing about his considered opinion.

3) MacLean’s reference to “Afraid to be Free” is wrong. It appeared in Public Choice 124, 1-2 (July 2005) . She does, however, get the citation right (if not quite complete) in the bibliography.