Will the CATO Institute lose its soul. In one of my earliest posts on this blog, I argued that America's penchant for counterproductive global interventionism was driven by not one but two imbalances of power. The first was the imbalance of power between the United States and the rest of the world, which made it possible for Washington to throw its weight around without worrying very much about the short-term consequences. If you're a lot stronger than anyone else, it's hard to imagine you could lose to anyone and you're more likely to do something stupid like invading Iraq.
The second imbalance was the disproportionate influence of pro-intervention forces within the U.S. foreign policy establishment. As I put it back in 2009: "America's rise to global primacy was accompanied by the creation of a well-developed set of institutions whose stated purpose was to overcome isolationist sentiments and to promote greater international activism on the part of the United States. Why does this matter for foreign policy? Will the CATO Institute lose its soul. When libertarians go to work.
New York, NY - Last month, libertarian blogger Julian Sanchez announced that if the right-wing Koch brothers - Charles and David - succeed in their efforts to take over the libertarian Cato Institute, where Sanchez works, he'd resign. (According to most reports, the Kochs want Cato to be a more reliable instrument of the Republican cause.) Sanchez then went on to criticise progressives who couldn't help noting the irony of libertarians complaining about wealthy people using their money to buy the kind of speech they like. If Cato is Koch property, progressives say, doesn't libertarian theory require that the Kochs be allowed to do with it what they will? (Another progressive critique, which Sanchez didn't address, was made by James Grimmelman, a professor at New York Law School, who pointed out how the whole kerfuffle illustrates the limitations of the libertarian celebration of contracts.)
Silly progressives, says Sanchez. Threat to autonomy and integrity. KBU. After long delays[1], GMU has come down with a self-contradictory whitewash on the plagiarism case against climate delusionist Edward Wegman. One committee conceded plagiarism on a paper that had already been retracted by the journal in question, and recommended a reprimand, while another cleared Wegman of all charges, against the judgement of every external expert who’s looked at the case, and in the face of copious evidence of direct cut-and-paste copying. With this and the Cato takeover, I think those both on the left and parts of the right who have presented views extremely critical of the “Kochtopus” network can rest their case. Any institution that relies on Koch Brothers money, whether it presents itself as a university, a thinktank or a grassroots organization, has to be regarded as a propaganda outfit. That’s true, even if, as in the case of Cato and GMU, some genuine and valuable research is produced.
Fn1. Wilkinson on Cato, Self-Serving Excuses, Second-Best Solutions (Ponies and Pandaemonia of Pis-Aller) Will Wilkinson makes what seem to me very astute comments about the Cato Institute’s partisan profile. The occasion is the ongoing Koch-Crane conflict. But these comments are important more for the way they point up typical deflections that occur when the light of ‘ideal’ theory is refracted through the lens of partisan desire, playing tricks on our view of the landscape of actual politics. It’s tempting to think that Cato almost never does anything to help the Democrats largely because it’s just too far to the left of the Democratic Party on foreign policy and civil liberties. Yet Cato is equally far to the “right” of the Republican Party on economic policy, welfare policy, education policy, and lots more. Politics is the art of the possible. No man demands what he desires; each man demands what he fancies he can get. Awareness of what is first-best is a condition of being able to aim at second-best. 1) Ideal Philosophy (utopian) 2) Ideal Policy (utopian) 3) Ideal Philosophy (actually)
Orwell Watch: More Reengineering of Values via Koch Funded “Deep Lobbying” The 40th anniversary of the Powell memo is this Tuesday, August 23. Louis Powell’s document articulated a vision and major elements of a plan for how major corporations would reshape social values to produce a milieu more conducive to their interests. As Bill Black wrote: He issued a clarion call for corporations to mobilize their economic power to further their economic interests by ensuring that corporations dominated every influential and powerful American institution.
Lewis Powell’s call was answered by the CEOs who funded the creation of Cato, Heritage, and hundreds of other movement centers. The result was arguably the most successful proselytization in history. And conservatives are not resting on their laurels. One ongoing effort is to cement right wing values by embedding them in the educational process. The Koch brothers are backing a push deeper into the educational process. Under the agreement with the Charles G. Cato Institute, Rasmussen poll results said politically biased. The Cato Institute and Rasmussen polls are often cited by conservatives that support certain social and political ideas, so are these organizations non-biased and their results to be trusted? Some critics don’t think so. The Cato Institute gives this definition of itself: "The Cato Institute is the foremost upholder of the idea of liberty in the nation that is the foremost upholder of the idea of liberty.
" - George F. Will Despite its pronouncements about being non partisan, critics declare the Cato Institute is as non-partisan as Fox News, a media outlet owned by J. Rupert Murdoch and is said by those critics to have an established political agenda, that is conservative and slanted towards the beliefs of its funding sources. These same critics, like Sourcewatch, maintain funding sources provide the direction for the Institute’s results. Read more... And who are these funding sources?
Cato Institute.