Rum. And Koch.
Special-interest
groups and their propaganda are not new but since the advent of the internet,
not only has the manner of information dissemination changed, but so has the
way the information is consumed.
Where
once a pressure group only had the printed medium, when radio came along, they
went with it. Same with television. And now, the Internet and in particular
social media like Twitter, Facebook, and the rest.
Pressure
groups take on all sorts of personas. Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) is a
pressure group. But so are television networks, for that matter. Each tries to
get the media consumer to consume their media.
The hope, the expectation, is
that by osmosis, you’ll get the message and start seeing things their way. If
there’s an interest, there’s a Twitter account for it.
Four Phases of Interest Group Development
Four Phases of Interest Group Development
Pressure, Interests, and Ideas
Just
about any ‘grouping’ of people can be construed to fit the definition. Some try
to get you to change your behavior; some to make you aware of something you may
not have been aware of, and others to share a little or as yet unknown idea.
And some want to make money.
All
of them wish for you to believe them to be the new, relevant ‘thought leaders’.
And each group's arguments make better sense that the other’s. And, they all
produce policy papers, analysis, statistics, and endorsements to prove it.
Much has been discussed regarding the Koch brothers and
their many-faceted effort to influence the body politic of late. Many,
especially from the left, have decried the massive amounts of money they pump
into their efforts, some even accusing the Machine of trying to buy elections.
It’s hard not to agree with this argument, considering the Machine seems to have a product available to slake a wide variety of
political thirsts.
If it’s Right-to-Work,
there’s ALEC, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Right to Work Committee and
others.
If Minimum Wage is
your bag, there’s the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the
National Association of Manufacturer’s and others.
Reince and repeat for tax
reform, voter rights, segregation, and on and on.
Types of Interest Groups
Types of Interest Groups
These days, it not unusual at all to learn that a
particular businessman belongs to any number of associations, involving a
variety of industries, and in an array of functions. When criticized for this,
they will mention that many if not all of the Founding Fathers belonged to
business associations.
What they don’t mention is that before the modern era, a
business man usually belong to only one association, if any[1].
What’s more, in the modern era, a particular association or
think tank may serve several functions such a trade association and as a type
of ‘chamber of commerce’ for a segmented market, as well as a social group.
Similar-Issue Politics
The Koch brothers aren't the first moneyed-interest to
employ multi-pronged marketing as a way of affecting the tone and direction of
political discourse, just the biggest. And they may be the best at it.
They have been linked to no less than an oodleplex[i] of think tanks,
policy institutes, advocacy groups, etc. All of which concern themselves with
the same issues, have incestuous staff arrangements, receive funding from the
same sources, and are all independent
and non-partisan. According to them, anyway.
Yet, the Koch brothers didn’t invent this scheme. Before
them, there was the John Birch Society, who claimed, when discussing their
approach to ‘educating the public’ (I forgot to mention all the educating going
on), to have gotten the idea from the Communist
Party, no less.
Great Expectations
But they didn't really. Years before the JBS was even a small tingly
glioma in Robert Welch Jr.’s brainstem, a group calling themselves the American
Liberty League (ALL), an organization that espoused
Ayn Rand’s philosophy earlier than she did, operated in much the same way.
Like Koch, they embraced the idea of the uncommon
man.
Obviously, they didn’t use Twitter or Facebook. But they did
issue a slew of pamphlets, leaflets, radio ads, and press releases. Led by
prominent businessmen, politicians, and academics, the group sought to defend
the “American Way”.
As Frederick Rudolph in The American Historical Review said
this about the ALL:
“The cloak in which the Liberty League dressed itself in order to promote its position and its program was made of respectable generalities, partial self-delusion, intense sincerity, and frequently embarrassing hypocrisy. It supported with worshipful intensity the Constitution of the United States; it placed itself on the side of the individual and of liberty in opposition to an encroaching government bureaucracy; it respected the judgment of the founding fathers who had so wisely incorporated the separation of federal powers and the rights of the states into the great national document.”
Sound
familiar? How could a group who held the Constitution and (gasp) the
Founding Fathers in such high regard be anti-American?
The League’s main opponent: The
President of the United States of America, Franklin Roosevelt. The group was
determined to do all they could to push back on the affront to liberty and
individualism that was the New Deal.
When one member of the group
referred to the depression as a ‘healthful tonic’, the public, still reeling in
the depression caused by the rugged individualism of uncommon men, wasn’t too
receptive to their message.
One would have thought that such
accomplished men, scholars some, would have been a bit smarter about their public
comments. Really, they should have known better. Harold Ickes, Roosevelt’s
Secretary of the Interior called the ALL a coalition of “industrialists,
constitutional lawyers, and captains of finance who drove our good ship onto
the rocks[ii]”
Captain’s Rum
Years
earlier, many of the same men involved with the American Liberty League had
come together to form the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment (AAPA), founded in 1918 by Captain William Stayton.
It’s
not hard to understand what this group was about. And once their objective was
met, they disappeared.
There
is one similarity between the old and the new: The various Koch groups,
with their tendency to cross-pollenate ideas and leadership personnel, a
throw-back to the AAPA, constitute a locus of ideology driven by one
ever-present goal: Money.
There is also one huge difference: From time to time we hear
from the Koch brothers, Charles, in particular, who says that the two have had their
names dragged through the mud simply for trying to be good citizens by
providing information and educational materials to the public. They claim it is
fundamentally unfair for the public to link their good name to such nefarious
aims such as ‘trying to buy elections’, citing that other players are afoot,
and their names aren’t mentioned in the same context.
There are reasons for
this. One is that no one else is involved in so many areas and no one else is
as committed as they are or are willing to spend so much of their fortunes to
see that public issues are resolved to their liking. The other reason is that
the Koch brothers, more than the others, make their contributions so
selective that each dollar given is done so with the objective of
putting even more money back into their own pockets. The Koch’s don’t really
makes donations, they make investments, tax free.
Romancing the Stonecutters
In opposition to the businessmen’s groups were those with different 'interests', namely, the trade associations. Since Roman times up to the present day, guilds, or
unions, acted as a counterweight to seek decent wages and otherwise improve working conditions
for craftsman.
Back then, as with the informal business associations,
guilds and unions were local affairs. Today, keeping pace with the industrial
organizations, the unions have taken to social media as well. See: Fire,
fighting with.
The guilds came to America along with industry.
There were
Baker’s Guilds, Ship-Builder’s Guilds, and even Banker’s Guilds. Following
close behind them were the employer, or owner groups such as The Employers’
Central Executive Committee (against unionization and the eight-hour day), the
Law and Order League, and the Railroad General Managers’ Association, which
worked in opposition to the Knights of Labor.
The power of the Koch Machine to apply pressure on elected
officials, often through their special-interest associations, has only been
rivaled by the British East India Company. The laws the Koch Machine fights
against are designed to protect ordinary people, working class people, from
predators like the Koch’s (and others, of course) who would exploit their lives
for their own profit.
Because of social media, the Koch Machine is even more
powerful when it comes to foisting its propaganda upon the public. The lessons from previous groups is not lost on the Koch Machine. Instead of
issuing bold, yet honest, statements, the various front groups disguise their
objectives in terms of ‘personal liberty’, ‘protecting the constitution’, and
the ever popular ‘freedom’, i.e., protecting America, and its Constitution. Who could oppose such efforts?
In a review of “You Are the Government[iii]”,
Lane W. Lancaster writes:
“If the words he (Shouse) uses in describing such matters as our Bill of Rights, the Federal system, and the system of checks and balances, are to be given their usual meaning, no such government ever existed anywhere.”
Divide Et Impera
When responding to critics, spokesmen for the various issue advocacy
groups claim that the founding fathers’ also belonged to such groups. There is
truth to this. Well after the war for independence, special interests played an
active part in influencing legislation. Wool, tobacco, hemp, and sugar
producers successfully petitioned the government in favor of their financial
interests.
However, in the era of the founding fathers, businessmen
typically belonged to only one such group, if any[iv]. These
days, it’s not at all unusual to see a member of one special interest group
belong to a number of other groups at the same time. There are now people whose
only source of income comes from involvement in such groups
Point in fact: the Koch Machine employs
240 full-time staff in 32 states. And, that’s just for Americans for
Prosperity. That’s a big difference from the guys raising a pint at the Green
Dragon.
Pressure groups such as Club for Growth, American
Legislative Exchange Council, and the CATO Institute are surrogates for Koch
Industries. Their purpose is to persuade you (or your elected representatives) to
buy their product, which may range from changes in tax structures and rates to
regulatory reform, all meant to line the pockets of Charles and David Koch.
Heads They Win, Tails You Lose
Because contributing to these organizations is tax exempt,
the actual tax payers (the 98%) foot the bill, in the same way that taxpayers
subsidize Walmart and McDonald’s profits.
Maybe what we need is a limit on the amount of tax-exempt money spent on these groups. Not
a limit on what can be given to them,
just a limit on how much the rest of us
have to cover.
Murray
Edelman points out that a policy adopted through special interest groups
produces two types of rewards: 1) tangible rewards to those doing the lobbying;
and 2) symbolic rewards to the rest. For those who won’t receive financial
gain, there’s the satisfaction of knowing that there are others who feel the
same as they do. That’s often enough, for some. For example, some non-membership
organizations have thousands of pledged supporters on Facebook, thousands of
followers on Twitter, and thousands of subscribers on email lists[v].
Some interest groups are spin-offs from other groups. Some are
born in opposition to existing groups. Moral victories are hollow. To win, to
make the effort (and money) worthwhile, the group must convince government to
act:
“Government continues to respond to groups that clearly communicate their interests and have the funding to convey their message effectively. Still, representation is not simply a matter of responding to specific interests or citizens. Government must also respond to society’s collective needs, and responsiveness to particular interests can reduce overall responsiveness.[vi]”
It’s when government stops responding to the interests of all
its citizens and focuses on satisfying a small handful of certain citizens that inequality grows. Make
no mistake, the Koch brothers aren’t the only concern in this matter. There’s
the Walton, Bradley, Richardson, DeVos, Schaif, Cargill, and MacMillan
families. But they are the most in-your-face actors on the stage.
That’s why they get so much press.
The difference in treatment between the Koch Machine and say, Walmart? Because unlike Walmart (who came under fire recently because one of its stores held a food drive for its own employees, basically asking their customers to chip in even more beyond the public assistance money spent on Walmart's needy employees, because the company sure as hell wasn't going to), isn't so bold as to fund a medusa's head of issue groups that basically claim the government is picking on them.
Doing so while failing to mention the tax breaks, low extraction fees (another government giveaway), and publicly paid-for subsidies that Koch Industries and its subsidiaries receive.
What the Koch Machine is doing is the same that many others are doing - only they are doing so much more of it. The Koch's are taking advantage of the fact that change is not uniform and coordinated among the many aspects of life. that is to say, technology changes at a a faster rate than our overall society does, and the Koch Machine takes advantage of that fact.
That’s why they get so much press.
The difference in treatment between the Koch Machine and say, Walmart? Because unlike Walmart (who came under fire recently because one of its stores held a food drive for its own employees, basically asking their customers to chip in even more beyond the public assistance money spent on Walmart's needy employees, because the company sure as hell wasn't going to), isn't so bold as to fund a medusa's head of issue groups that basically claim the government is picking on them.
Doing so while failing to mention the tax breaks, low extraction fees (another government giveaway), and publicly paid-for subsidies that Koch Industries and its subsidiaries receive.
What the Koch Machine is doing is the same that many others are doing - only they are doing so much more of it. The Koch's are taking advantage of the fact that change is not uniform and coordinated among the many aspects of life. that is to say, technology changes at a a faster rate than our overall society does, and the Koch Machine takes advantage of that fact.
[1]
See “The Evolution of Business Groupings”, Clarence E. Bonnett, published in
“Pressure Groups & Propaganda” – The Annals of the American Academy of
Political and Social Science – Thorsten Sellin, Ed.
[i]
An “oodleplex” could be defined as a ‘very big number’.
[ii]
https://www.nationalreview.com/nrd/300943/print
[iii]
Written by Jouett Shouse, who served as President for both the AAPA and the
ALL.
[iv]
See “Pressure Groups and Propaganda”, published by the American Academy of
Political and Social Science, Harwood L. Childs, Ed. Philadelphia, 1935.
[v]
“The Not-So-Special Interests”, Matt Grossman. Stanford University Press,
Stanford, 2012.
[vi]
“Interest Group Politics”, Allan J. Cigler and Burdett A. Loomis, Ed.s. CQ
Press, Washington D.C. 2002
