Thread by @docrussjackson

How did we get here?

In her 2016 book 'Dark Money', investigative journalist Jane Mayer reveals how an elite group of plutocrats effectively subjected the US political system to a process akin to corporate capture.

Rose Deller summarises:

blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofboo…

A startling statistic from the 2016 US presidential election was that the estimated total campaign spend of $6.8 billion was double the expenditure of the 2012 contest. An estimated $1 billion of this amount came from a few shadowy billionaires backing the Republican Party.

The opaque nature of political finance in America has now been exported & embraced by the political Right in Britain - especially by Conservative party.

@openDemocracy, @BylineTimes & others have been valiantly highlighting this problem for a long time.

opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-…

Unravelling the complex web of the super-wealthy’s influence - which includes not just individual politicians & the Tory party, but also a global network of very powerful & influential lobbyists, think tanks, institutions, "charities" & national media - is all but impossible.

Central to Mayer’s examination are the lives and careers of the Koch brothers, who are now increasingly influential in Britain too, incidentally having just taken ownership of ASDA - critics talk about the excessive reach of the 'Kochtopus'.

theguardian.com/us-news/2019/a…

The Kochs were heavily influenced in the 1960s by a selective reading of the influential economist Friedrich Hayek, coming to the misleading, delusional, dangerous & incredibly destructive view that completely free markets were key to economic prosperity and individual liberty.

As they have accumulated vast wealth over the course of their career, the brothers’ political doctrine appears to have hardened, developing into a strain of conservative libertarian politics described by William Buckley Jr. as ‘anarco-totalitarianism’.

While their individual wealth would give them huge power on their own, the Koch brothers have intensified their political influence by joining forces with a select group of like-minded political allies, many of whom are also part of the multibillionaire club.

While the Kochs may disagree with their peers on a range of political issues, the glue that binds them all together is antipathy towards government regulation and taxation, especially when it directly affects their own personal wealth.

Their ultimate goal, Mayer argues, is to remake the #USA (& now the UK too) along the lines of their free-market beliefs, destroying the post-war consensus of market socialism/strong Govt which led to decreasing economic inequality & high levels of social mobility until the 80s.

Here's a short #THREAD (seen well over 2 million times) about how the shift to increasingly deregulated hyper-free-market capitalism has played out in Britain has played out:

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1359445197113950208

The Kochs and their allies have bankrolled myriad political vehicles such as think tanks, political magazines, institutions & "charities" to achieve their objectives, often giving them innocent-sounding names like ‘Citizens for a Sound Economy’ and ‘Americans for Prosperity’.

The organisations – which appear to be mere public relations outfits masquerading as think-tanks or civil action groups – have developed seemingly 'common-sense' rationales to entrench their anti-tax, anti-government and anti-regulation message into the public consciousness.

In 2016, Mayer noted that as recently as the early 1980s, many of their ideas were consigned to the fringes of US politics.

But we now know that America’s distrust in government has now surpassed that shown towards business, & Republicans are now firmly anti-Government.

While much of Dark Money is focused on the activities and lives of the Kochs, Mayer also takes a wide lensed, historical view of the origins of the financial takeover of US politics, with a focus on the role of billionaire John D. Rockefeller.

Rockefeller’s lobbying meant that ‘philanthropic’ activity became tax-deductible: if a citizen wants to donate $1million to a ‘charity’ of their choosing, they can deduct this amount from their tax bill - many organisations representing elite interests can themselves a 'charity'.

In Britain, we're in the preposterous situation where opaquely funded & influential think tanks like London's #IEA can now lobby law-makers on behalf of elite interests, pushing an anti-Government, low-tax, deregulation agenda, & still be called a 'charity'.

Especially in the USA, the definition of 'philanthropic activity' is now so broad that in effect it becomes a choice between paying taxes or donating to a cause, creating what Mayer describes as ‘weaponised philanthropy’.

Over the past century these groups, run with little transparency or accountability, have multiplied from the single Rockefeller foundation: by 2013, there were over 100,000 private foundations in the USA with assets of over $800 billion.

The 2010 Supreme Court’s ‘Citizens United’ decision to remove restrictions on political spending by private individuals sent the amount of money being pumped into US politics into the stratosphere, creating what has been described as twenty-first century ‘civil oligarchy’.

1 in 5 of the new Conservative MPs from 2019 have worked in lobbying or PR for corporate interests, & 4 of Britain’s largest lobbying firms now have at least one former employee in parliament.

Here's another #THREAD on corporate propaganda:

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1376451860622630912

Mayer also focuses on the ecological degradation - the collateral damage of the Kochs’ cynical disregard for environmental laws: the level of collusion between Republicans & the oil industry to kill off burgeoning domestic & international climate change regulations is disturbing.

The Koch’s in-house newsletter has argued that the enforced innovation that climate change brings will actually be beneficial to the human race in forcing us to adapt to the changed circumstances.

The UK Govt is now under their spell, too.

theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

The case Mayer builds against the billionaire class is comprehensive & extremely depressing. While the greedy & selfish Kochs show a complete lack of humanity, readers are constantly reminded of the social consequences of the carnage they & their peers inflict on US society.

Mayer shows how US democratic life is being delegitimised & undermined by the ideology of a tiny proportion of its society, destroying the majority of US citizens’ faith in government to improve their lives.

The UK's Govt & right-wing media are doing the same thing in Britain.

Their wanton disregard for human life and the environment in their pursuit of profit has led to the deaths and misery of millions of individuals around the world.

The ideology of deregulated free-market capitalism is leading to the ruin of the USA - and Britain too.

#Resist

Currently there is a 15 year limit on British ex-pats being allowed to vote & donate to political parties. Boris Johnson wants to scrap that - allowing the grotesquely wealthy elite to give cash to his party from overseas without ever returning to the UK.

mirror.co.uk/news/politics/…

I said earlier in this #THREAD that Koch had taken over ASDA - this was a mistake (sorry) it's Morrisons:

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1411601390384865284