An article by Jane Mayer in the New Yorker on the libertarian Koch brothers has received a great deal of attention, including this piece by Frank Rich. The bizarre point of both pieces seems to be to undermine David Koch’s efforts to become a respected member of New York “society” by harming his reputation among his liberal acquaintances in the competitive world of big money philanthropy, the better to persuade him that he’d be better off ditching his “right-wing” allegiances.
Anyway, despite the ominous overtones of the Mayer piece let’s put things in perspective. According to Mayer, the Kochs have spent “more than a hundred million dollars” on “right-wing” foundations since 1980. Let’s be aggressive, and assume arguendo the figure, adjusted for inflation, is four hundred million dollars. That’s a whole $13 million or so a year since 1980. By contrast, the Ford Foundation, one of many well-endowed “mainstream” liberal foundations, spends over $500 million a year, a decent fraction of which goes to left-wing organizations and causes. Any given major American university employs far more liberal academics in the social sciences annually than can possibly be employed on a $13 million budget. Soros’ Open Society Institute annually spends over $150 million to “support individuals and organizations advancing a more open, just, and equal society in the United States.”
Meanwhile, David Koch, one of the brothers in question, has recently given one hundred million dollars to Lincoln Center, 2.5 million dollars to New York City ballet, more than forty million dollars to Sloan Kettering, fifteen million dollars to New York-Presbyterian Hospital, a hundred and twenty-five million to M.I.T. for cancer research, twenty million to Johns Hopkins University, and twenty-five million to the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, in Houston.
So, in the scheme of things, the Kochs spend relatively little money on libertarian causes.
I don’t doubt that the Kochs, especially Charles (whom I’ve met, once) are devoted libertarians. And given the dearth of rich libertarian sugar daddies, their funding has often been crucial to the network of libertarian think tanks, activist organizations, etc.
But the brothers are not exactly depleting their $35 billion estimated family fortune on libertarian causes. My sense is that in Charles’ case, he spends as much money as he thinks can be spent wisely and efficiently, given the still-minimal libertarian infrastructure that exists–plus he likes to exert a lot of influence on the organizations he funds, which becomes difficult if spending is spread too thin. In David’s case, libertarianism seems to take a back seat to other philanthropic interests.
In both cases, the idea advanced by Mayer and Rich that they support libertarian causes to advance their business interests is rather silly; rich, well-endowed business conglomerates tend to benefit more than anyone from government intervention in the economy, given that they tend to have the most say in how such regulations are written. Even stringent environmental regulations can benefit a large energy company like Koch Industries–if they are written so that they stifle upstarts.
Disclosure: I’ve received money from organizations that are or were Koch grantees, such as the Cato Institute–though I’ve never taken any money directly from the Kochs–and I only wish it was the kind of money Ford Foundation or MacArthur Foundation favorites get!
BlackX says:
How much does Soros give comparatively?
August 30, 2010, 8:54 pmargle bargle says:
Never heard of the Kochs (Kochses) before, but how and on who did they spend their hundred million? The return on investment in lobbying can be tens of thousands of percent.
Doesn’t really seem to matter in the long run; he’s spent more on the Lincoln theater according to the article than he has on right wing stuff.
August 30, 2010, 8:58 pmThe Swiss says:
This seems like an attempt to poison the well. Libertarians are not hired guns, they are true believers; why ostracize yourself from polite company for the sake of a vanishingly small percentage of charity funds? It’s also not like insidious libertarians are enjoying tremendous success getting the regulatory and legal changes they want. If anything, we are being beaten back on all fronts.
It seems that some people will only be happy when all money supporting intellectual or policy-based pursuits comes from the government. I wonder who that regime would favor.
August 30, 2010, 9:13 pmMichael H Schneider says:
but how and on who did they spend their hundred million?
According to the New Yorker article, among the beneficiaries of their largess are a number of organizations doing public relations work to convince people that global warming isn’t real. The Koch’s money comes, in large part, from fossil fuel companies which stand to lose a lot of money if people recognize the validity of the science supporting global warming, and thus move the government to cut back the incredible taxpayer subsides which the Kochs get for their fossil fuel production.
August 30, 2010, 9:25 pmwm13 says:
As a minor hanger-on of New York society, I say with some confidence that if you are willing to give money, you could have sex with goats and you would be welcome in polite society. Also, most of the upper middle class people who run New York society are power-worshipers, and, if the latest poll results are correct, they will be very much fonder of Republicans on November 3 than they are right now. So I suspect the Mayer/Rich enterprise is going to be rather a flop.
August 30, 2010, 9:30 pmDavid Bernstein says:
Actually, if you would engage in some critical thinking, you would notice the following, all of which you can glean from the article itself: (1) The Kochs gave money to libertarian causes and think tanks long before global warming was an issue; (2) the think tanks in question tackle many issue besides global warming, and Mayer doesn’t provide any evidence that, say, the relatively small % of Cato’s budget that comes from the Kochs is in any way related to the position Cato employees take on global warming. Not in the article, but indicative of its “balance and fairness”, is that the Kochs also give money to organizations like the Reason Foundation that employ scholars who have endorsed the idea that humans are causing global warming.
The basic problem with the article is that it conflates the political activities of Koch Industries with the ideological philanthropy of its owners. By Mayer’s (il)logic, David is giving money to Lincoln Center to distract the masses from the harm to the world climate caused by Koch Industries.
August 30, 2010, 9:32 pmArthur Kirkland says:
Al Gore reportedly greeted Courtney Love once with, “I’m a big fan.” Courtney’s lack of polish, for once, came in handy: “Yeah, right, Al. Name a song.”
The same principle applies here. The Kochs seem as “libertarian” as the InstaConservatism — a selective libertarianism that overlaps neatly (especially in practice) with conservative positions. Are the Kochs leaders in drug legalization advocacy, or self-interested economic policy? Do they spend their money on anti-regulatory activity, or to safeguard abortion rights and to promote equal treatment for gays? Do their donations to NORML or the ACLU come within orbital distance of their dontations to hard-right groups? I do not know the answers to these and similar questions, but the record of the Olin-Scaife-Koch-Searle-Bradley ideological push, even tempered by Koch’s opposition to the Patriot Act, makes me willing to wager.
The Kochs appear to have been right-wingers — or perhaps anti-liberals — far more than libertarians, or anything else.
If I have missed the evidence that they are libertarians, perhaps one of the legion of right-wing advocates they have funded (directly or indirectly) will provide a correction.
August 30, 2010, 9:36 pmDavid Bernstein says:
Geez, even Mayer doesn’t deny that they are sincere libertarians, she just has this puerile notion that libertarianism is inherently compatible with the interests of big business.
August 30, 2010, 9:48 pmObjecting to Political Activity – A few thoughts. says:
[...] Lots of folks have commented on Mayer’s piece. And, apparently, Koch Industries saw fit to link [...]
August 30, 2010, 9:57 pmPerseus says:
Your usual conservatives-masquerading-as-libertarians rant might have some merit if foundations such as Olin, Scaife, Bradley, etc. claimed to be libertarian (which, generally, they do not–and Jennie Scaife has apparently been donating money to Planned Parenthood), and if you provided some actual evidence about Koch.
August 30, 2010, 9:57 pmwm13 says:
What Arthur Kirkland is saying is that, although thought is free in principle, he, Arthur Kirkland, gets to decide, with respect to each ideology, what version he prefers, and, if you have the wrong version, then you aren’t really a libertarian or whatever. This sort of intellectual dishonesty is pretty common. It’s used, for example, by left-liberal university administrators to refuse recognition to “pro-life” groups on the grounds that they don’t oppose capital punishment, to conservative groups that don’t support stare decisis, etc. Although common, this particular trope isn’t very persuasive to anyone who can think analytically, like the average law school graduate. Save it for the rubes, dude.
August 30, 2010, 10:01 pmBrennan says:
I read Mayer’s piece a few days ago and Bernstein does a terrible job of characterizing it. Mayer is a journalist; her piece was intended to uncover what exactly the Koch brothers have been up to when it comes to their philanthropy.
For example, one of Mayer’s key findings (which Bernstein ignores in order to assert that Mayer’s intent was to embarrass David Koch amongst the Manhattan high society set) was that the brothers have used a network of loosely affiliated and well-funded organizations to rattle the “Tea Party” of late into existence and develop it into a potent political force.
August 30, 2010, 10:07 pmgrog says:
Not picking on Bernstein in particular here, but in general, I’m always amused by when folks do, and don’t, bring up the argument of whether money is fungible. Here, we don’t know if it is, but, for instance, when it comes to insurance policies and abortion, we know that it is. It usually is for criminal defendants, but it it surprisingly non-fungible in strange ways when it comes to civil forfeiture in some places.
Rhetorical fun for the whole, well, argumentative family.
August 30, 2010, 10:08 pmArthur Kirkland says:
The conservatives-in-drag organizations include Reason, Cato, FIRE, etc.
Richard Mellon Scaife’s female relatives — sister, ex-wife, child — do not appear to have shared his ideological crusades. His sister, until her death, often was not on speaking terms with him, and regularly contributed cash to causes guaranteed to rile him. His ex-wife openly ridiculed his conservative causes. If his daughter is funding Planned Parenthood, she appears to be following her mother’s (and aunt’s) footsteps, and driving her father crazier than he already is.
August 30, 2010, 10:17 pmDavid Bernstein says:
Of course money is fungible. But the Kochs were giving money to Cato and other libertarian causes when “the coming New Ice Age” was what scientists were worried about, not global warming, so to associate the money that Cato et al. gets from the Kochs with a concern with global warming requires some, you know, evidence.
August 30, 2010, 10:19 pmArthur Kirkland says:
What I am saying is that I am at least as (and probably more) libertarian than plenty of right-wingers who claim to be libertarians, which means those people aren’t much of a bunch of libertarians. Why they are unwilling to accept and announce that they are conservatives, or right-wingers, or Republicans is beyond me. Is it self-loathing, or lack of self-awareness, or something else?
August 30, 2010, 10:23 pmDavid Bernstein says:
I don’t see how these points contradict each other. It’s no secret in free market circles that the Kochs give money to free market causes. According to Frank Rich, however, David’s political views are apparently not well-known among the society crowd.
And if Mayer’s point is that the Kochs somehow managed to “rattle the Tea Party into existence,” as opposed to helping to fund and organize a preexisting populist movement, it’s completely absurd (but still consistent with an intent to embarrass D. Koch.) If libertarianish movements with the strength of the Tea party could be created with a few million dollars of funding, I think every free market organization would just close its doors and use the money to create a dozen Tea Parties.
August 30, 2010, 10:29 pmPerseus says:
I fail to see any similarity between foundations that generally do not put on a libertarian public face (e.g., Olin, Scaife, Bradley, etc.) and those that do (e.g., Reason, Cato, etc.) even if one accepts your dubious claims about the latter.
August 30, 2010, 10:31 pmBlue says:
The really nice touch about the Mayer piece was using quotes from the “Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan watchdog group” to talk about how awful Koch is without disclosing that the “Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan watchdog group” is actually a Soros-funded Media Matters type hit-job shop.
August 30, 2010, 10:33 pmgrog says:
I was making a much more general point. But to keep it on topic, BP gave money to a passel of friendly groups before they redecorated the Gulf and were talking about other things, so clearly asserting that what those groups were saying about the Gulf was influenced by BP’s money requires, you know, evidence.
…
Not asserting that the Kochs were itemizing the expected reports in return for their donations, but I do think that assuming a complete lack of relation requires a set of disbelief suspenders that could hold up the pants of an entire libertarian think tank.
August 30, 2010, 10:36 pmAlanDownunder says:
Isn’t libertarian infrastructure an oxymoron?
August 30, 2010, 10:38 pmArthur Kirkland says:
They tend to be funded from the same funnels, and to take similar positions. Some take straight-down-the-line conservative positions; others devote nearly all of their resources to conservative advocacy but mention a few libertarian positions (often opposing social conservatives) on the website.
August 30, 2010, 10:42 pmBrennan says:
Blue manages to combine two completely inaccurate assertions into one massively ignorant sentence. The Center for Public Integrity is not a “Soros-funded Media Matters type hit-job shop”; it’s pretty sad that Blue passes on this nugget of info as if everyone is too stupid to google the Center and discover who funds it. And, of course, the claim that Soros runs Media Matters is another incredibly stupid canard that anyone who knows how to use Google can debunk. Such sad stuff from a fellow commenter.
August 30, 2010, 10:45 pmgeokstr says:
Funny you don’t concern yourself with the self-loathing, objective-journalists-in-drag dinosaur media, who won’t admit in public that they’re leftists.
August 30, 2010, 10:48 pmrpt says:
What real legal and regulatory changes have you lost?
August 30, 2010, 10:58 pmHitch your wagon to a stool. says:
Oh- the Koch’s are appearing in a Sondheim revival… or something?
August 30, 2010, 11:00 pmrpt says:
Another attack on Major Garrett.
August 30, 2010, 11:06 pmSteve P. says:
Shocking. Blue makes non-factual assertions?
But I think you may be off-mark with the second criticism. It strikes me as a crash blossom — I don’t believe Blue meant that Soros runs Media Matters, I believe he was saying that the CPI was a “Media-Matters-type hit-job shop” (my words). As in, the style matches his view of Media Matters SOP, not that they’re run by the same organizion.
August 30, 2010, 11:07 pmOrin Kerr says:
I thought the article was interesting, but I agree that it was at its weakest (and a very weak point it was) when suggesting that the Koch brothers gave money out of self-interest. My mind wandered to why the authors would suggest that, too.
August 30, 2010, 11:11 pmLitigator London says:
Isn’t it the case that the Olin-Scaife-Bradley-Koch foundations have all been actively directing funds to achieve a shift to the right in academia, the law and politics – in effect the implementation of the “Powell Memorandum”. Isn’t it pretty clear that if you are hoping for grants to fund a chair or a fellowship, the prospective appointees had better be pretty far to the right for example infected by one or other of the strains of the originalist virus.
Now, I don’t dispute the Billionaires for the Far Right club their freedom to spend their money for whatever political purposes they like. I do question whether tax exemptions should apply to some of the activities. I have the same reservations about retirement homes for superannuated political appointees awaiting a change of administration – such as, for example, the rumoured appointment of one David Addington to the Heritage Foundation. Should his stipend come out of untaxed money?
PS: Hasn’t George Mason University done rather well out of these foundations?
August 30, 2010, 11:11 pmSarcastro's Little Brother says:
Why Arthur Kirkland is unwilling to admit he is liberal, or left-wing, or Democrat is beyond me. Is it self-loathing, or lack of self-awareness, or something else?
August 30, 2010, 11:16 pmJoe says:
I thought the article was interesting, but I agree that it was at its weakest (and a very weak point it was) when suggesting that the Koch brothers gave money out of self-interest. My mind wandered to why the authors would suggest that, too.
The money at various points were given to efforts that in various ways promoted their bottom line. Why the idea this was in some fashion out of self-interest (are we saying that the article claims that is the ONLY reason?) is something that made your mind wander is a tad unclear.
August 30, 2010, 11:20 pmDavid Welker says:
Of course Bernstein is going to defend the welfare payments he receives indirectly from Koch. Because Bernstein couldn’t survive in the real world; that is why he works at a public university off taxpayer money or receiving grants from sugar daddies.
August 30, 2010, 11:23 pmSecurityGeek says:
The point of the pieces is not only to highlight the amount of support the Koch brothers give to conservatarian causes, it’s to point out their key role in funding the astroturf corporations that organize various Tea Party functions. One of the great ironies of the Tea Parties apparent to non-Fox News watchers is that while the attendees of these events conflate big government and big business as conspiring to control the purses and actions of individual citizens (perhaps correctly), the events themselves are bankrolled by billionaires who receive a huge amount of government subsidy (or did, under the right Administration).
People who aren’t infected by Obama Derangement Syndrome might be interested in why after 8 years of war, swelling government, deficits and the dilution of civil liberties all of the sudden our country saw a populist libertarian movement. It’s pretty clear that the only difference between Nov 2008 and Jan 2009 is that billionaires who happen to own their own cable channels and fossil fuel empires decided to highlight the concerns of this group with wall-to-wall new coverage, and pay for the websites, buses, and Alinsky-quoting organizers necessary to create the illusion of a mass movement.
August 30, 2010, 11:27 pmBlue says:
Defending Media Matters = zero credibility.
While I loathe Wiki, here it is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Public_Integrity
“The Center is partisan, and advocates for traditionally liberal causes”
August 30, 2010, 11:28 pmDavid Welker says:
Oh, libertarians have a whole school of theory (public choice theory) that says politicians do everything out of self interest.
*sarcasm*
The idea that the Koch brothers would act out of self-interest. Shocking! Never! How dare anyone say such a thing. Never mind that I personally malign every politician or government employee who has ever walked the earth. Never mind also that I myself am a government employee.
*end sarcasm*
I don’t really know to what extent the Koch brothers fund libertarian propaganda in order to protect their own financial interests. I am not a mind reader, so I can’t say I have 100% knowledge concerning motives. But people who make a living making simplistic assumptions about how other people are motivated solely by self-interest complaining about suggestions that some giving may be motivated by self-interest strikes me as a little too rich.
August 30, 2010, 11:29 pmIlya Somin says:
Of course Bernstein is going to defend the welfare payments he receives indirectly from Koch. Because Bernstein couldn’t survive in the real world; that is why he works at a public university off taxpayer money or receiving grants from sugar daddies.
Since David made lots of money working for a private law firm before he entered academia, this is a stupid claim. More to the point, this is the kind of ad hominem attack that got you banned from commenting on VC in the past. So I must politely warn you that if you return to your old ways, you are likely to get the same result.
August 30, 2010, 11:39 pmDavid Bernstein says:
If what you’re saying is that conservative and libertarian foundations tend to give their money to conservative and libertarian scholars to the extent they find academic research, yes of course that’s true, but virtually tautological.
But anything beyond that is false, in particular the idea that there are Olin/Scaife/Bradley/Koch chairs in universities that are only available to conservative or libertarians, much less to only to conservative or libertarian originalists.
August 30, 2010, 11:39 pmwm13 says:
Actually, there are a lot of people like David Bernstein (smart,
August 30, 2010, 11:39 pmobnoxiousargumentative, conservative, Jewish) at New York law firms, and they do fine.Ricardo says:
I would like to see more support for this with regard to the Cato Institute. I don’t think they won very many conservative friends with their public opposition to the war in Iraq. Cato’s list of legal briefs filed in a variety of cases makes clear that they take standard, ACLU-style positions in civil liberties cases. They have participated in cases opposing civil forfeiture in drug cases, opposing indefinite “civil confinement” for sexual predators, opposing the federal law prohibiting depictions of animal cruelty, and they also participated in the Al-Marri, Raich and Hamdan cases.
August 30, 2010, 11:42 pmmichael H Schneider says:
David Bernstein says, responding to me:
Actually, if you would engage in some critical thinking, you would notice the following,
The way you refuse to stooop to ad hominems, name calling and gratuitous insult clearly demonstrate your intellectual rigor.
August 30, 2010, 11:43 pmDavid Bernstein says:
Because you’re too ignorant to recognize that when public choice scholars state that people act in their “self-interest,” self-interest is defined by what they are seeking to maximize, which isn’t necessarily wealth?
August 30, 2010, 11:44 pmRicardo says:
Here is a recent op-ed by Cato’s Gene Healy opposing predator drone strikes on U.S. citizens.
I’m wondering what it would take for Cato to shake off the image that they are conservatives in drag. Do they have to hold a “smoke out” on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial?
August 30, 2010, 11:56 pmBill Pitcher says:
I worked for Koch for over 20 years, a wonderfully rewarding education and challenge in every positive sense. America could use a lot more principled and generous citizens like Charles and David. Mayer’s piece was a cheap hit-job.
I also went to school with Gus diZerega. Gus was and remains an advocate of socialist revolution, when he isn’t pursuing paganism and witchcraft, of course. Mayer was fooled badly by lending credibility to diZerega as a knowledgeable witness to the Kochs’ political philosophy.
Knowing David, I think he’s happy to engage in a principled philosophical discussion with the leftmost members of NYC society, if they care to do so.
August 31, 2010, 12:04 amOrin Kerr says:
It seems likely that you don’t actually believe that, but rather you are just saying that because you have an agenda that you are trying to enact out of your financial self interest. Of course, I don’t have any actual evidence of that, but apparently it’s okay to just make these suggestions without evidence, because well, that’s just what is done.
August 31, 2010, 12:10 amLitigator London says:
From my point of view, the Cato Institute qualifies as a respectable institution, if slightly right, and there are plenty of others which lean right, just as there are yet others which lean left. I wouldn’t say the same about the likes of the Heritage Foundation or the American Enterprise Institute – and there I do question whether they ought to retain their tax-exempt status. But I’m sure the relevant US legislation and revenue practice will differ from that of the UK.
August 31, 2010, 12:10 amEd Darrell says:
The Ford Foundation doesn’t give to political causes. Mayer cited only the political giving of the Kochs, not their charitable giving, which would be more comparable to Ford Foundation grants.
August 31, 2010, 12:14 amPerseus says:
Only according to your own peculiar ideological litmus tests.
August 31, 2010, 12:16 amdavidbernstein says:
That depends on a rather narrow understanding of what a “political cause is.” E.g. I suppose for precision, we could just agree that the FF gives a great deal of money to left-wing organizations.
August 31, 2010, 12:22 amPerseus says:
The closest thing are institutes that may be affiliated with a university (e.g., Hoover, Mercatus, etc.). But American universities generally remain extremely jealous of their prerogatives regarding the appointment and tenure of their own academic faculty.
August 31, 2010, 12:31 amRicardo says:
I agree.
One of the more senior people at Cato is Tom Palmer, who spends a lot of his time these days holding seminars and workshops outside the U.S. — including places like China, Iraq, Russia, and the Central Asian republics — trying to encourage university faculty, students and people in leadership positions to form classical liberal networks and organizations. I don’t agree with him on everything but he is definitely not a hack. He is also openly gay and has been an unapologetic supporter of gay marriage.
August 31, 2010, 1:11 amrilkefan says:
Given this thread, to quote Plato via Juvenal since the law seems to prefer Latin, Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
August 31, 2010, 1:25 amJeff Walden says:
It’s not clear to me whether you read the article or not, but it made note of a presidential run in 1979 in which David Koch took the vice presidential slot with a party platform calling for most of these things, so I don’t see how your criticism qualifies as much more than no-true-Scotsmanship.
On a different tack, why do you think the Koch brothers are illegitimate if, one presumes, they try to spend their money and resources on causes that will produce the most bang for the buck?
Not all the positions you ascribe to libertarians are indeed essential characteristics of true libertarians, but it doesn’t seem in the context of conversation here that nitpicking the list by serially characterizing all parts of it would be productive.
August 31, 2010, 3:36 amJeff Walden says:
Supposing for the moment this description is accurate, it rather misses the nature of the resources needed for the Tea Party to flourish, or for any prominent political movement. As David Bernstein more or less noted, it’s the people, their time, their fervor, and their dedication that constitute the bulk of the resources involved in the Tea Party movement. It’s relatively easy to get money, but it’s hard to get real momentum and dedication from people: the monetary cost is simply too high to just buy it.
In fact, isn’t this precisely how Obama voters characterized his campaign in 2008 — as deriving its energy from the people and their enthusiasm, not from the half billion in donations he raised and spent?
And I seem to recall another onetime candidate in that election who spent a lot of his own money in the primaries yet wasn’t successful, too…
August 31, 2010, 3:49 amJeff Walden says:
(As an added note, the article gave the impression this was much of the lesson they learned from the presidential campaign.)
I’ll stop commenting now. :-)
August 31, 2010, 3:51 ammattski says:
Mayer didn’t rely on diZerega for a description of the Koch’s political philosophy. She got that from other sources, for instance, from the 1980 Libertarian party platform that David Koch ran on as vice-presidential candidate. Or from Brian Doherty.
If it is true that David Koch is interested in “principled discussion” as you say then it is hard to understand why he refused to speak with Mayer. Indeed, the Koch brothers refusal to explain themselves in public speaks volumes. If your political philosophy is unpalatable to the majority of the citizenry then what do you stand to gain by having a public discussion?
Nothing.
August 31, 2010, 8:30 amAdam Berkowicz says:
I’m still waiting for Arthur Kirkland to provide any substantive evidence that the Cato Institute, or Reason, are fronts for conservative organizations. I’d also love to hear his definition of a libertarian.
That being said, this article is just another example of liberals using a wealthy non-liberal to decry the haves and to incense the have-nots.
August 31, 2010, 8:45 amJoe says:
Orin Kerr says:
The money at various points were given to efforts that in various ways promoted their bottom line. Why the idea this was in some fashion out of self-interest (are we saying that the article claims that is the ONLY reason?) is something that made your mind wander is a tad unclear. [quote of me]
It seems likely that you don’t actually believe that, but rather you are just saying that because you have an agenda that you are trying to enact out of your financial self interest. Of course, I don’t have any actual evidence of that, but apparently it’s okay to just make these suggestions without evidence, because well, that’s just what is done.
Yes, because unlike the people in the article, you know basically nothing about my financial situation, how I make my living and so forth. All I’m saying is that it is very reasonable to conclude that these people “in some fashion” give money in ways that benefit their bottom line. It doesn’t cause my mind to wander or anything. You really become snarky in comments sometimes — is it some sort of outlet from your nice professor persona, or something?
August 31, 2010, 9:13 amMartinned says:
Also from Chait @ TNR, from a post about the Cato “purge”:
August 31, 2010, 10:45 amDG says:
Arthur Kirkland:
Reason? One of your litmus tests was to be strongly pro-drug legalization. Well, Reason is about as strongly pro-legalization as you will ever find, unless you are demanding they actually put pictures of their staff smoking weed on their public website.
CATO has made a strong and principled stance in the telecommunication sector against most sorts of regulation, even when it means opposing the Clear Channels of the world, which is not exactly a conservative thing to do.
August 31, 2010, 10:56 amzuch says:
If she supposedly is so unfamiliar with the concepts of libertarianism, she can hardly be an authority on whether the Kochs are such.
Cheers,
August 31, 2010, 11:35 amzuch says:
If she supposedly is so unfamiliar with the concepts of libertarianism, she can hardly be an authority on whether the Kochs are such.
When was “the coming new ice age” some big scientific concern?!?!? Back when pigs grew wings?
Cheers,
August 31, 2010, 11:47 amCalderon says:
Martinned, quoting Jon Chait, about David Koch:
Here’s a man who inherited a massive business empire.
Actually he didn’t. The Koch Brothers inherited a relatively small business, which they then built into a “massive business empire.” Their ability to build Koch Industries may (or may not) help explain some of their viewpoints (or vice versa).
As far as his supposed “whining,” pretty much anyone — from the US president on down — who gets criticized has similar responses (though adding in racism, sexism, etc. if the critic is a conservative). I really don’t understand Chait’s point. If a prominent person is criticized in the media, are they just supposed to remain silent rather than saying that they believe the criticisms are wrong? I sort of doubt Chait applies to people other than the Kochs.
August 31, 2010, 12:27 pmRicardo says:
For what it’s worth, Koch is a pretty well-known name among the think-tank crowd in the D.C. Beltway area. Outside that, very few people have heard of the Koch family. And the reason for this is that the “enormous influence” the family wields is concentrated almost entirely within the network of right-leaning think tanks within the Beltway.
Look, these guys aren’t Jack Abramoff, Bill Kristol, Ralph Reed, Grover Norquist, Karl Rove or any number of other people who, well, actually wield (or wielded in the case of Abramoff) enormous influence in electoral politics.
Back when the Republican Party controlled both houses of Congress and the White House, Koch-affiliated organizations went into high gear to oppose Medicare Part D. From what I can tell, the sum total of their influence was barely a ripple in terms of actual legislative influence in the final product.
August 31, 2010, 12:32 pmDavid M. Nieporent says:
Something else: Arthur Kirkland doesn’t know what libertarianism is.
August 31, 2010, 4:32 pmChrisTS says:
If anyone bothers to check the links from Brennan and Blue:
the first is a link to Source Watch; the second is a link to a wikipedia article that even that venerable organization has flagged as not up to its standards and needing work (like, evidence).
Well, I just dunno how to compare those.
August 31, 2010, 4:36 pmSamuel Jenkins says:
What are people’s reactions to former Texas SG (and Volokh Conspiracy darling) Ted Cruz’s cameo in the New Yorker article:
August 31, 2010, 5:12 pmDavid M. Nieporent says:
You’ve got to love this little point of self-absorption. The most salient fact about Koch is not actually about Koch, but is really about the media?
There’s the famous joke: a guy talks about himself for an hour. Finally, he stops and says, “But enough about me. Let’s talk about you. What do you think about me?”
What enormous influence? The Koches fund the libertarian movement, which has had about as much influence on American politics as Swaziland had on the War of 1812.
I knew that Chait has always struck me as one of the dimmer bulbs in TNR’s stable, but how can anybody hang out in Washington policy circles and not know about the Koches?
August 31, 2010, 5:26 pmOn Charles and David Koch | theConstitutional.org says:
[...] Like David, I read the New Yorker piece. It seemed like tendentious conspiracy-mongering to me (ironic in light of Mayer’s interest in Fred Koch’s link to the John Birch Society). Short on important facts and long on characterization and innuendo. Others have dissected in some detail, that’s not my object here. [...]
August 31, 2010, 6:20 pmPerseus says:
His business empire only became truly massive after the inheritance, whereupon he built it to where it is today. His political influence is hardly out-sized, and its relationship to the alleged “explosion in income inequality” is trivial.
August 31, 2010, 6:58 pmwm13 says:
Speak for yourself, the Kochs are very well-known in Palm Beach social circles. (Which some of us consider at least as important as, and a lot more fun than, the D.C. think-tank crowd.)
August 31, 2010, 7:16 pmJustin says:
All I can do is sigh and wish you a happy life. If only you devoted all that energy to thinking of ways to suck less.
August 31, 2010, 10:12 pmA. Criminal says:
That’s pretty funny because Reason is just about 99% bed-wetting liberal on social issues.
Thanks for the link, it’s good to know that The Center for Public Integrity is ideologically left-wing despite the fact that Soros might not fund it. Their left-wing bias isn’t much of a secret, though, because all you have to do is look at their latest newsletter(Dec 2009?) – they’re clearly not making any effort hide their ideology, which is why standard-issue journalists call them “nonpartisan”.
September 1, 2010, 10:16 amArthur Kirkland says:
They fund right-wing institutions. Do they support NORML? The ACLU? Planned Parenthood? Or Swift Boaters, the Heritage Foundation and just about any right-wing nuttiness that moves?
September 1, 2010, 7:02 pmDavid M. Nieporent says:
Refer back to my first comment: Something else: Arthur Kirkland doesn’t know what libertarianism is.
The ACLU can work with libertarians on some issues, but is not libertarian at all, but left-liberal. “Swift Boaters” were, besides being a silly left-wing boogeyman, neither libertarian nor conservative, but anti-Kerry. There’s nothing wrong with NORML, but it’s a narrow organization; while libertarians are pro-legalization, that doesn’t mean that being pro-legalization makes one a libertarian. Koch doesn’t support the NRA either, AFAIK. Planned Parenthood is not the least bit libertarian; it feeds at the government trough.
September 1, 2010, 7:50 pmArthur Kirkland says:
By local standards, I am a libertarian. As is nearly everyone else.
By standard standards, however, the number of libertarians who frequent this site appears to hover between one and two.
The Kochs are right-wingers, not libertarians. Hundreds of thousands of people rotting in jail because of a liberty-killing War on Drugs, and “libertarians” devote their attention to Swift Boat ads, the Heritage Foundation and other right-wing groups? “Libertarians” spend to elect people devoted to bashing gays, warring against weed, stifling abortion, prosecuting dirty-movie producers, demonizing Muslims, expanding government surveillance, torturing shackled prisoners, and crusading against immigrants?
If you consider the Kochs to be libertarians rather than right-wing extremists with a few quirky positions, I submit you don’t know what libertarianism is.
September 1, 2010, 10:41 pmDavid M. Nieporent says:
Refer to my previous two comments: you don’t know what libertarianism is.
No. Why do you keep talking about Swift Boat? It’s a 6 year old series of campaign ads that has nothing to do with Kochs.
No. Where are you getting any of this? What does it have to do with the Kochs? Libertarians fund libertarian organizations like Cato and Reason. You know, libertarian organizations.
September 2, 2010, 8:06 amHe Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother « Around The Sphere says:
[...] all that threatened by the influence of the Ford Foundation, which, as David Bernstein observes, is considerable: According to Mayer, the Kochs have spent “more than a hundred million dollars” on [...]
September 2, 2010, 12:16 pmErrors In Jane Mayer’s New Yorker Article Attacking the Kochs | theConstitutional.org says:
[...] donate to. Much of this work was pro bono, while in some cases I received small payments (Gven the vastly greater amount of research funds available from liberal foundations, I could almost certainly have gotten as much or more from liberal funders had I been a left-wing [...]
September 3, 2010, 4:23 am