Business-Managed Democracy

“Business-managed democracies are those in which the political and cultural arrangements are managed in the interests of business.”
Sharon Beder, 2009.

 

 

 

For more on this subject see Suiting Themselves: How Corporations Drive the Global Agenda, Earthscan, London, 2006.

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Business-Managed Government

Think Tank Funding

reference
Reference: Kirkpatrick Sale, The Green Revolution: The American Environmental Movement, 1962-1992, New York, Hill and Wang, 1993, p. 49; Jerome L. Himmelstein, To the Right: The Transformation of American Conservatism, Berkeley, California, University of California Press, 1990, pp. 129, 146.

Since the 1970s in the US, oil industry money was invested in conservative think tanks through business people like billionaire Republican Richard Mellon Scaife and Mobil Oil. Chemical industry money was invested through foundations such as the Olin Foundation. Lynde and Harry Bradley invested manufacturing money, Smith Richardson invested pharmaceutical money, and the Koch family invested energy money.

reference
Reference: Jerome L. Himmelstein, To the Right: The Transformation of American Conservatism, Berkeley, California, University of California Press, 1990, pp. 129, 146.

This influx of money meant not only that conservative think tanks proliferated but that other think tanks moved towards the right. As Jerome Himmelstein points out in his book To the Right: ‘The political mobilization of big business in the mid 1970s gave conservatives greater access to money and channels of political influence. These helped turn conservative personnel into political leaders and advisers, and conservative ideas, especially economic ones, into public policy.’

A dozen or so foundations provide most of the funding for most conservative think tanks including the AEI, the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute and the Hoover Institution (see table below).

Donations by Selected Foundations to Selected Think Tanks 1985-2002

  Hoover Institution AEI Heritage Foundation Cato Institute
Sarah Scaife Foundations $7.6 million $4.4 million $17 million $1.8 million
Lynde and Harry Bailey Foundations $1.7 million $15 million $13 million $560,000
John M. Olin Foundation $5 million $7 million $8 million $800,000
Koch Family Foundations $5000 -- $1 million $12.5 million
Smith Richardson Foundation $1.3 million $4 million -- --
1999 only
Selected Corporate Foundations $128,000 $1.6 million $341,000 $241,000
Source: Media Transparency, ‘The Strategic Philanthropy of Conservative Foundations’; G. W. Domhoff. Who Rules America? Power and Politics, 4th edn. New York: McGraw Hill. 2002, p. 83.
See also: US Think Tanks | American Enterprise Institute | Heritage Foundation | Cato Institute

© 2011 Sharon Beder
http://www.herinst.org/BusinessManagedDemocracy/government/national/funding.html