Why corporate special interests created modern libertarianism

[misterhighwasted]

http://m.dailykos.com/stories/1572955

Why corporate special interests created modern libertarianism
Sep 25, 2016 11:46am CDT by David Akadjian

Why do they have to do this? Because if they told us that they were going to cut our pay and benefits so that a few people could get really wealthy, we’d never buy it.

This justification is what most people know today as libertarianism. This isn’t the libertarianism of Proudhon, Bakunin, or Hodgskin.
It’s the libertarianism of Mises, Rothbard, Friedman, and Rand and it originated from corporate think tanks of the 1940s such as the Foundation for Economic Freedom (FEE) and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Lobbying has been going on for a long time in America. In 1949, Congress formed the House Select Committee on Lobbying Activities (or the Buchanan Committee) to investigate the extent to which lobbying influenced legislation.
One of the areas the Buchanan Committee investigated was lobbying to the public compared to direct lobbying of legislators.
The two powerful think tanks of the day that they looked at were the Foundation for Economic Freedom (FEE) and the Public Affairs Institute.

FEE was founded by longtime U.S. Chamber of Commerce executive Leonard Read and its top contributors were a who’s who of the largest corporations of the day including: General Motors, Chrysler, Consolidated Edison, Du Pont, Gulf Oil, US Steel, Montgomery Ward, Armour, and B.F. Goodrich.

As revealed by the committee and discussed in the book The Lobbyists by Kark Schriftgeisser, the purpose of FEE was “the preparation of pamphlets, booklets, and articles presenting one side of public issues.”

FEE fought against President Truman’s fair deal, rent controls, labor bargaining, taxes, and other progressive legislation of the day. FEE also fought for the Taft-Hartley Act to limit the strength of unions.

In 1946, Herbert Nelson, one of the highest paid lobbyists in Washington and the executive vice president of the National Association of Real Estate Boards was fighting to get rid of rent controls. Nelson went to Read and FEE and commissioned a study to attack rent controls and influence Congress.

Nelson, according to Schriftgeisser, would write his association president later and say:

"I do not believe in democracy. I think it stinks".

SNIP

Mark Ames sums up the purpose of Friedman libertarianism nicely:

The purpose of the FEE — and libertarianism, as it was originally created — was to supplement big business lobbying with a pseudo-intellectual, pseudo-economics rationale to back up its policy and legislative attacks on labor and government regulations.

These attacks on democracy repeat in David Koch’s Libertarian Platform of 1980:

We urge the repeal of federal campaign finance laws, and the immediate abolition of the despotic Federal Election Commission.
We favor the abolition of Medicare and Medicaid programs.
We favor the repeal of the fraudulent, virtually bankrupt, and increasingly oppressive Social Security system. Pending that repeal, participation in Social Security should be made voluntary.
We propose the abolition of the governmental Postal Service.
We oppose all personal and corporate income taxation, including capital gains taxes.
We advocate the complete separation of education and State. Government schools lead to the indoctrination of children and interfere with the free choice of individuals. Government ownership, operation, regulation, and subsidy of schools and colleges should be ended.

We advocate the abolition of the Food and Drug Administration.
We advocate the abolition of the Federal Aviation Administration.
We support the abolition of the Environmental Protection Agency.
We support repeal of all law which impede the ability of any person to find employment, such as minimum wage laws.
We condemn compulsory education laws … and we call for the immediate repeal of such laws.
We oppose all government welfare, relief projects, and ‘aid to the poor’ programs. All these government programs are privacy-invading, paternalistic, demeaning, and inefficient. The proper source of help for such persons is the voluntary efforts of private groups and individuals.

We call for the repeal of the Occupational Safety and Health Act.
We call for the abolition of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

The Big Fish Eat the Little Fish, Satire on the Fall of Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, 1619.


The goal is to undermine democracy in favor of wealthy private owners and big business.
The goal is to flip everything on its head so that government is run by and for the largest corporations and special interests.

Libertarians advocate for eliminating rules because they know that without any rules, the big eat the small, and, just like in the game of Monopoly, there will be a winner and lots of losers.
More...

[Bill USA]

1. I look at this simulated Libertarianism as just the old "Commies gonna getchya" meme repackaged

Good Post.

[misterhighwasted]

2. Yes it is. The Koch lead John Birchers were the origins of today's Libertarians

Birchers were a radical group once, and today's Libertarians and Tea Party are both founded & funded today by the Bircher/ Kochs.
They are still around, just operate under the guise of new names.

[Bill USA]

3. here's a good article on the Koch Bros organizations vast reach - from who else: Mother Jones

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/11/koch-brothers-web-influence

In 1958, Fred Koch, the founder of the Midwestern oil and cattle ranching empire that would become Koch Industries, became a charter member of the John Birch Society, the fiercely anti-communist organization whose members believed Soviet influence was infecting all aspects of American society. The Birchers attempted to place their weight on "the political scales…as fast and as far" as they could, but their movement was quickly sidelined to the ideological fringe. Two of Fred's four sons, Charles and David, have carried forward the conservative torch, and they have succeeded where their father and his allies failed. Their father's company, meanwhile, has grown into a multibillion-dollar conglomerate that is the second-largest private corporation in the country.

Though the Koch surname has become synonymous with political spending, the family's philanthropy has flowed to a wide range of causes. A significant portion has gone to think tanks and policy institutes that advance the brothers' free-market beliefs. And Charles Koch has lavished millions on universities to bolster their study and teaching of this school of economics. But Koch contributions have also established cancer research centers, funded ballets and preserved cultural institutions, and provided grants and scholarships to students.

This project, an effort to track the breadth of the Kochs' philanthropic influence, builds on several years of reporting (which culminated in Dan Schulman's book, Sons of Wichita, and our cover story "Koch vs. Koch&quot , news stories, as well as data from tax filings and the organizations' websites. (See more about our methodology below.) What follows is by no means exhaustive. It's the first round of a project that we'll continue to expand and update; please leave suggestions and tips in the comments.

~~

Family Foundations

The Kochs have a handful of family foundations, whose giving ranges from public policy and political advocacy to cancer research and wildlife conservation. The Charles Koch Foundation has donated millions to universities, think tanks, and public policy shops to advance his libertarian philosophy. David Koch's foundation and personal philanthropy, while supporting similar causes as his brother, has centered on medical research and the arts. The Fred C. and Mary R. Koch Foundation (run by Elizabeth Koch, Charles' wife) donates to Kansas-based arts and education initiatives, and the Claude R. Lambe Foundation (run by Charles) contributes largely to free-market-minded think tanks and institutes. The Knowledge and Progress Fund, a private foundation run by Charles, has given almost exclusively to Donors Trust, an organization that spreads donations around to a host of right-leaning groups and preserves the anonymity of its donors.

Dollar figures show the amount each group has received from key Koch organizations.

Click a group for more details.

Charles Koch Foundation
Claude R. Lambe Foundation
David H. Koch Foundation and Personal Philanthropy
Fred C. and Mary R. Koch Foundation: $1,557,000
Knowledge and Progress Fund

(MUCH more)