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Elon Musk at the opening ceremony of a new Tesla Gigafactory for electric cars in Gruenheide, Germany, March 22, 2022. Photo: Patrick Pleul/Reuters

Elon Musk styles himself as a character out of science fiction, posing as an ingenious inventor who will send a crewed mission to Mars by 2029 or imagining himself as Isaac Asimovs Hari Seldon, a farseeing visionary planning ahead centuries to protect the human species from existential threats. Even his geeky humour seems inspired by his love for Douglas Adamss Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

But while he may take inspiration from science fiction, as Jill Lepore has observed, hes a bad reader of the genre. He idolises Kim Stanley Robinson and Iain M. Banks while ignoring their socialist politics, and he overlooks major speculative traditions such as feminist and Afrofuturist science fiction. Like many Silicon Valley CEOs, he primarily sees science fiction as a repository of cool inventions waiting to be created.

Musk engages with most science fiction in a superficial manner, but he is a careful reader of one author: Robert A. Heinlein. He named Heinleins The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress from 1966 as one of his favourite novels. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is a libertarian classic second only to Ayn Rands Atlas Shrugged in its propaganda value for neoliberal capitalism. It inspired the creation of the Heinlein Prize for Accomplishments in Commercial Space Activities, which Musk won in 2011. (Jeff Bezos is another recent winner.)

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress popularised the motto Theres no such thing as a free lunch, often used by defenders of capitalism and opponents of progressive taxation and social programmes. Its about a lunar colony that frees itself, via advanced and cleverly applied technology, from the resource-sucking parasitism of Earth and its welfare dependents. In this instance, it appears that Musk correctly caught the authors drift.

No such thing as a free lunch

Heinlein filled his fiction with loudmouthed men who claim to be accomplished polymaths. They boss everyone around, make decisions on a whim and ignore advice regardless of the consequences. In other words, they act just like the CEO of Tesla, Inc. Likewise, Musk often attracts investors through publicity stunts rather than proven science and engineering, a self-marketing strategy that puts him, as Colby Cosh has pointed out, in the same dubious company as Heinleins space entrepreneur D.D. Harriman in his story The Man Who Sold The Moon.

But Heinlein wasnt in the business of criticising free-market capitalism far from it. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress depicts a Moon colony forced by the centralised Lunar Authority to ship food to Earth where it goes to feed starving people in places like India. The lunar citizens, or Loonies, revolt against the state monopoly and establish a society characterised by free markets and minimal government. The Loonies welcome the Malthusian catastrophe that will follow their withdrawal of nutritional assistance from Earth because they believe population collapse will ultimately make the welfare dependents down there more efficient people and better fed in the long run.

In addition to basic libertarianism, the novel promotes what Evgeny Morozov would call technological solutionism, the belief that every social or political problem can be solved with the right technical fix. This ideologys roots go back to the 1930s technocracy movement, which, as Lepore points out, numbered Musks grandfather among its adherents. Musk has taken up this legacy, promoting the electric car as the solution to climate change. In Musks view, private innovation rather than state intervention or activist politics will save the world.

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress follows the same mindset. Although the Loonies advocate libertarian principles we learn that the most basic human right is the right to bargain in a free marketplace these prove secondary to the practical problem that Earth is draining Lunas water and other resources at a rate they predict will result in mass starvation on the Moon.

Their solution to this problem touts itself as equally scientific. In the book we learn that an insurrectionary group is no different from an electric motor: it must be designed by experts with function in mind. The Loonies revolutionary conspiracy decides that revolutions are not won by enlisting the masses. Revolution is a science only a few are competent to practice. It depends on correct organisation and, above all, on communications.

Acting on this principle, one of the co-conspirators, Mannie the computer technician, designs their clandestine cell system like a computer diagram or neural network, mapping out how information will flow between revolutionists. They determine the best way of organising a cadre not through democratic deliberation or practical experience but through cybernetic principles.

Mannies disinterest in the messy business of political persuasion is a strength, not a weakness, because it allows him to see people as mere nodes in the network. Indeed, Mannys narration throughout the novel uses engineering terms to describe human beings and social interactions. He describes one woman as [s]elf-correcting, like a machine with proper negative feedback. Mannie, who boasts a cyborg arm, treats others as mechanisms in need of tinkering. Musks brain-machine interface company, Neuralink, attempts to operationalise this idea.

Also read: Elon Musk Thinks Neuralink Could Merge Humans With AI Neuroscience Says Wait

For Mannie and his co-conspirators, democratic input from the revolutions mass base is noise that can only interfere with the signals transmitted from the elite leadership outward to their interconnected web of subordinates. Even when it comes time to establish a constitution for the Luna Free State, the conspirators use clever procedural tricks to do an end run around everyone in the congress who is not a member of their clique. Smart individuals always win out over mass democracy in Heinleins fiction and thats a good thing.

The novel takes solutionism to the extreme when Mannie enlists the help of a sentient supercomputer named Mike to lead the overthrow of Earths colonial government on Luna. Anticipating the exuberance of the dot-com era, Heinlein suggests that a computer can foment change better than any movement or organisation. Mikes revolutionary tactics reflect the novels obsession with communications: much of the book is devoted to the conspiracys attempts to shift public opinion against the Lunar Authority and sow confusion among the governments ranks through hacking and media campaigns.

Like the keyboard warriors of our present moment the hyperonline Musk among them Heinleins revolutionary elite hope to change society by manipulating information.

When revolutionary war breaks out, Mikes technical superiority emerges as the deciding factor. Using electromagnetic catapults, the supercomputer hurls rocks at Earth that impact with the force of atomic explosions. The Federated Nations of Earth are forced to grant their lunar colonies independence after this calculated show of force. In the end, the Loonies achieve political emancipation thanks to a gadget.

Markets and machines

These ideas would later feed into what Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron call the Californian ideology, a combination of techno-utopianism and economic libertarianism espoused by digital artisans such as software engineers working in Silicon Valley. As Barbrook and Cameron note, the Californian ideologys evangelists in the 1990s tended to be science-fiction fans who loved Heinlein and fancied themselves countercultural rebels bringing about a golden age of freedom by building the electronic marketplace. They believed that once unleashed from physical as well as governmental constraints, the free market would produce new technologies to address every possible problem or need.

Even more fundamentally, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress reflects a prevailing dogma that promotes cybernetics as the key to understanding the universe. Under this belief system, everything from markets to ecosystems appear as information processors operating based on feedback mechanisms. Like a thermostat, they respond to changing circumstances without conscious human control. Because the economy is a self-regulating system too complex for anyone to understand let alone steer, the Californian ideologists suggest, it should be insulated from democratic interference by a global legal order developed by neoliberal experts.

Musk has immersed himself in this ideology since his involvement with PayPal in the 1990s, and so it makes sense that he would be drawn to The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. Hes so mired in this way of thinking that he entertains the idea that all of reality is a computer simulation. In many ways, Musk models himself on Mannie the computer technician, the wisecracking rebel who only wants the government to get out of his way so he can make things work.

When Musk encounters traffic congestion, he doesnt see it as a failure of urban planning or a problem following from underinvestment in mass transit. Instead, he sees it as an opportunity to build a hyperloop. His solution to everything is an invention developed and marketed by rogue geniuses in the private sector. His faith in technofixes is so great that he imagines machines as potential overlords waiting to take over. There is more than a hint of Mike in his fear of an impending robot apocalypse.

Even his efforts to acquire Twitter and strip it of content restrictions seem to be motivated by the same ideology. Fred Turner argues that Musks opposition to content moderation stems from a belief that information wants to be free. When speech counts as data rather than dialogue, it becomes impossible to see why hate speech might be harmful.

Musks belief system rules out the idea that society is riven by antagonisms, least of all class struggle. He will always see problems like climate disaster as purely technical rather than derived from the profit-seeking behavior of the corporations ruining the planet. If science fiction reveals the contradictions of capitalism and encourages us to imagine alternatives, then Musks sci-fi persona is a cheap imitation. As a libertarian and a technocrat, the best he can do is fantasise about handing the revolution over to the machines.

Jordan S. Carroll is a visiting assistant professor of English at the University of Puget Sound. He is the author of Reading the Obscene: Transgressive Editors and the Class Politics of US Literature (Stanford 2021), and he is currently working on a book on race, science fiction and the alt-right.

This article was first published by Jacobin and has been republished here with permission.

Original post:
Why Understanding This '60s Sci-Fi Novel Is Key To Understanding Elon Musk The Wire Science - The Wire Science

CHARLESTON, S.C. At a campaign event the weekend before South Carolinas primary election, Tom Rice, a conservative congressman now on the wrong side of former President Donald J. Trump, offered a confession.

I made my next election a little bit harder than the ones in the past, he said on Friday, imploring his supporters a group he called reasonable, rational folks and good, solid mainstream Republicans to support him at the polls on Tuesday.

Two days before and some 100 miles south, Representative Nancy Mace, another Palmetto State Republican who drew the former presidents ire, recognized her position while knocking doors on a sweltering morning.

I accept everything. I take responsibility. I dont back down, she said, confident that voters in her Lowcountry district would be sympathetic. They know that hey, even if I disagree with her, at least shes going to tell me where she is, she added.

Ms. Mace and Mr. Rice are the former presidents two targets for revenge on Tuesday. After a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, they were among those who blamed the president for the attack. Ms. Mace, just days into her first term, said that Mr. Trumps false rhetoric about the presidential election being stolen had stoked the riot and threatened her life. Mr. Rice, whose district borders Ms. Maces to the north, immediately condemned Mr. Trump and joined nine other Republicans (but not Ms. Mace) in later voting for his impeachment.

Now, in the face of primary challenges backed by the former president, the two have taken starkly different approaches to political survival. Ms. Mace has taken the teeth out of her criticisms of Mr. Trump, seeking instead to discuss her conservative voting record and libertarian streak in policy discussions. Mr. Rice, instead, has dug in, defending his impeachment vote and further excoriating Mr. Trump in the process.

Should they fend off their primary challengers on Tuesday, Ms. Mace and Mr. Rice will join a growing list of incumbents who have endured the wrath of the G.O.P.s Trump wing without ending their political careers. Yet their conflicting strategies a reflection of both their political instincts and the differing politics of their districts will offer a look at just how far a candidate can go in their defiance of Mr. Trump.

In the eyes of her supporters, Ms. Maces past comments are less concrete than a vote to impeach. She has aimed to improve her relationship with pro-Trump portions of the G.O.P., spending nearly every day of the past several weeks on the campaign trail to remind voters of her Republican bona fides, not her unfiltered criticism of Mr. Trump.

Everyone knows I was unhappy that day, she said of Jan. 6. The entire world knows. All my constituents know.

Her district, which stretches from the left-leaning corners of Charleston to Hilton Heads conservative country clubs, has an electorate that includes far-right Republicans and liberal Democrats. Ms. Mace has marketed herself not only as a conservative candidate but also one who can defend the politically diverse district against a Democratic rival in November.

It is and always will be a swing district, she said. Im a conservative, but I also understand I dont represent only conservatives.

That is not a positive message for all in the Lowcountry, however.

Ted Huffman, owner of Bluffton BBQ, a restaurant nestled in the heart of Blufftons touristy town center, said he was supporting Katie Arrington, the Trump-backed former state representative taking on Ms. Mace. What counted against Ms. Mace was not her feud with Mr. Trump but her relative absence in the restaurants part of the district, Mr. Huffman said.

Katie Arrington, shes been here, Mr. Huffman said, recalling the few times Ms. Arrington visited Bluffton BBQ. Ive never seen Nancy Mace.

During a Summerville event with Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, Ms. Mace gave a stump speech that ran down a list of right-wing talking points: high inflation driven by President Bidens economic agenda, an influx of immigrants at the Southern border, support for military veterans. She did not mention Mr. Trump.

Ms. Mace predicts a decisive primary win against Ms. Arrington, who has placed her Trump endorsement at the center of her campaign message. A victory in the face of that, Ms. Mace said, would prove the weakness of any endorsement.

Typically I dont put too much weight into endorsements because they dont matter, she said. Its really the candidate. Its the person people are voting for thats what matters.

Speaking from her front porch in Moncks Corner, S.C., Deidre Stechmeyer, a 42-year-old stay-at-home mother, said she was not closely following Ms. Maces race. But when asked about the congresswomans comments condemning the Jan. 6 riot, she shifted.

Thats something that I agree with her on, she said, adding that she supported Ms. Maces decision to certify the Electoral College vote a move that some in the G.O.P. have pointed to as a definitive betrayal of Mr. Trump. There was just so much conflict and uncertainty. I feel like it shouldve been certified.

Mr. Rices impeachment vote, on the other hand, presents a more identifiable turnabout.

Its part of the reason Ms. Mace has a comfortable lead in her race, according to recent polls, while Mr. Rice faces far more primary challengers and is most likely headed to a runoff with a Trump-endorsed state representative, Russell Fry, after Tuesday.

Mr. Frys campaign has centered Mr. Rices impeachment vote in its message, turning the vote into a referendum on Mr. Rices five terms in Congress.

Its about more than Donald Trump. Its about an incumbent congressman losing the trust of a very conservative district, said Matt Moore, former chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party and an adviser to Mr. Frys campaign.

Still, Mr. Rice is betting on his hyper-conservative economic record and once-unapologetic support of the former president to win him a sixth term in one of South Carolinas most pro-Trump congressional districts.

In an interview, Mr. Rice noted the Republican Partys shift toward pushing social issues over policy something he said had been driven in part by the former presidents wing of the party, which helped redefine it.

Why are these midterms so important? This years races could tip the balance of power in Congress to Republicans, hobbling President Bidens agenda for the second half of his term. They will also test former President Donald J. Trumps role as a G.O.P. kingmaker. Heres what to know:

What are the midterm elections? Midterms take place two years after a presidential election, at the midpoint of a presidential term hence the name. This year, a lot of seats are up for grabs, including all 435 House seats, 35 of the 100 Senate seats and 36 of 50 governorships.

What do the midterms mean for Biden? With slim majorities in Congress, Democrats have struggled to pass Mr. Bidens agenda. Republican control of the House or Senate would make the presidents legislative goals a near-impossibility.

What are the races to watch? Only a handful of seats will determine if Democrats maintain control of the House over Republicans, and a single state could shift power in the 50-50 Senate. Here are 10 races to watch in the Houseand Senate, as well as several key governors contests.

When are the key races taking place? The primary gauntletis already underway. Closely watched racesin Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia wereheld in May, with more taking place through the summer. Primaries run until September before the general election on Nov. 8.

Go deeper. What is redistrictingand how does it affect the midterm elections? How does polling work? How do you register to vote? Weve got more answers to your pressing midterm questions here.

He also laid out what the Republican Party should stand for: less taxes, less government, more freedom, individual responsibility, the American Dream, he said. If were not for that, then, gosh, I dont know what the Republican Partys about.

The impeachment vote has also won him favor with some voters. Rick Giles, a Rice supporter in Conway, S.C., said he admired Mr. Rice for his vote.

He stood up to Trump when a lot of people didnt, Mr. Giles said. He stood on his values. He didnt go with the party line. I like that.

Mr. Rices district, in South Carolinas northeast corner along the North Carolina border, is one of the states most conservative, favoring Republicans by nearly 30 points. And before the impeachment vote, Mr. Rice was one of Mr. Trumps most staunch supporters, with a voting record that matched Mr. Trumps stance more than 90 percent of the time.

Its not about my voting record. Its not about my support of Trump. Its not about my ideology. Its not because this other guys any good, Mr. Rice said. Theres only one reason why hes doing this. And its just for revenge.

Mr. Trump has had less success in the states at the root of his primary challenger push. In Georgia, two of his most prominent perceived enemies, Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, handily won their primaries against challengers backed by the former president. The two House races where he did not endorse incumbents have gone to a runoff.

Mark Sanford, a former congressman who was bested by Ms. Arrington in 2018 after Mr. Trump backed her primary challenge, predicted that Ms. Mace would prevail.

I think shell be fine, he said, pointing to the states increasing number of transplants from northern states who tend to favor establishment candidates. That bodes well for Nancy, it doesnt bode well for Katie.

Still, he said, Tuesdays outcome is unlikely to change the former presidents approach to politics.

Its binary with Trump, Mr. Sanford said. Youre not halfway in, halfway out youre either in or out.

Read more:
Two Targets of Trumps Ire Take Different Paths in South Carolina - The New York Times

Last autumn, Boris Johnson brought the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities into being. Naming a ministry after a catchphrase seems to suit our age of rhetoric as policy. How long before we see a Department for Getting on Your Bike, or a Department for Unleashing the British Entrepreneurial Spirit?

The levelling up initiative was born out of the Conservatives 2019 election victory, in which many former Labour constituencies in the north and Midlands the so called red wall changed sides. The thinking was that these acquisitions, the fruits of the war over Brexit, could not be kept once Brexit was done unless their needs were addressed. The idea of levelling up finding policies to reverse regional gaps in income, health, education and jobs was part of a wider narrative of a realignment, moving left on economics, right on questions of social policy. It was a way to consolidate the coalition brought together by Brexit so that it would have a life beyond Brexit itself.

The problem is, levelling up is running into difficulties and looks as if it is getting nowhere. For a start, the government has been distracted by both Partygate and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. While these distractions may be temporary, other obstacles will remain. The small-state, libertarian faction of the Tory party, which wants low taxes and a government that stays out of the economy, is no fan. Neither are those in the blue wall: MPs from traditional Tory constituencies that dont want to lose funding to more deprived areas. Internal opposition aside, the pressure to keep taxes as low as possible, and the other calls on the government purse, greatly limit the cash available to make levelling up a reality.

But if the policy fails, we should not mourn its passing. Why? Its not likely to work, and there are initiatives more deserving of money that probably will.

Its hard to diagnose the dysfunctions that create regional disparities. They can be rooted in the people of a particular place, or caused by an accident of history. There may be as many causes as there are people or firms in a particular place. Accidents of history also play a role. Things like fancy amenities or infrastructure may well be part of the reason for a towns success, or they could be the fruits of it (or both). This difficulty in diagnosing root causes is part of the reason why regional inequality is so entrenched. Its also why income gaps between nations across the world are so hard to close.

If you dont know with any certainty why one place is succeeding and another isnt, then you are likely to waste money by building bridges or transport links that will be underused, or producing housing or industrial estates that are unwanted.

In my view, there is no ethical defence of the disparities in incomes and life chances that market forces help to generate. In an ideal world, they would not exist. But the pure socialist systems that try to prevent them have such bad side effects corroding incentives and personal liberties, and being vulnerable to exploitation by powerful members of the party hierarchy that we have no choice but to tolerate a certain level of disparity. What applies to people also applies to towns, cities and regions. Part of the problem is that people are drawn to a place to do business because of who else is going to be there; yet who else is going to be there is determined by what they think others will do, creating a chicken and egg situation. Governments can help convince people that a place is viable by providing good attractions, amenities, or a university or a transport node. But a citys viability can unravel quickly and unpredictably, as seen in Detroit, which, from a high of about 1.85 million people in 1950, lost almost two-thirds of its population.

Levelling-up enthusiasts see regional devolution as a way to help crack these problems of diagnosis and prescription. But devolution carries it own risks. Devolving tax and spending limits the possibility of redistribution from richer areas to poorer ones; it unravels the fiscal union, setting the scene for the kinds of difficulties the euro area experienced after the financial crash. In addition, local politics is more vulnerable to corruption. Local politicians wont have national interests at heart, so may engage in unproductive fights simply to move economic activity from one place to another.

None of this is to say that every levelling up initiative is a bad idea. But right now, there are a lot of other things governments could do that would be better value for money. We need to tackle the cost of living crisis by moving money from those who can pay to those who are experiencing hardship. We have got to address the Covid legacy of long NHS waiting lists, and put the service on a more resilient footing to deal with future pandemics and other challenges. Government has to deal with the crisis in social care. The gap between real funding per head in state and private schools is widening. And we have to wean ourselves off fossil fuels, something made all the more urgent by the imperative of weaning ourselves off Russian fossil fuels. There is other post-Covid work to do in broadening access to high-speed internet and making food and other distribution networks more resilient.

This is a long list of policies that are expensive but essential, and will stretch government capacity and the electorates tolerance of taxation to its limits. Many of them, if they work, will also help with the broad set of objectives put in the bucket marked levelling up. For instance, better funding for the NHS and social care will help close one of the worst aspects of inequality, the gap in life expectancy between rich and poor.

Even at the best of times, we need to recognise the limits of a generous and muscular state. Offering everyone the chance to do the job of their choice at the same wage wherever they live is well beyond those limits. Providing decent education, health and social care and green energy is not and we should focus on those things instead.

Tony Yates is a former professor of economics and head of monetary policy strategy at the Bank of England.

Inequality, what can be done? by Anthony B Atkinson (Harvard, 16.95)

Brexitland: Identity, Diversity and the Reshaping of British Politics by Rob Ford and Maria Sobolewska (Cambridge, 15.99)

Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo (Penguin, 9.99)

Read the original post:
The big idea: why we shouldnt be levelling up - The Guardian

WAUSAU Open state Senate seats will dominate local elections in the Marathon County area this fall.

Decisions by Republican state Senate incumbents Kathy Bernierand Jerry Petrowskito not seek reelection will set up primary elections on Aug. 9.

Three Republicans will compete to replace Bernier in the 23rd Senate District. The winner of the primary will also win the seat in November because no Democrat filed to run for the seat.

Meanwhile, the winner of a three-way Republican primary to replacePetrowski in the 29th Senate District will face Democrat Robert Look.

Here are the races for the Marathon County area.An (*) indicates a race that will require a primary; (i) denotes the incumbent.

Incumbent Kathy Bernier, R-Chippewa Falls, is not seeking reelection.

Republicans*: Brian Westrate, Fall Creek; Sandra Scholz, Chippewa Falls; Jesse James, Altoona

Challengers: None

Incumbent Jerry Petrowski, R-Stettin, is not seeking reelection.

Republicans*: Brent Jacobson, Mosinee; Jon Kaiser, Ladysmith; Cory Tomczyk, Mosinee

Democratic: Robert Look, Rothschild

Republican: Calvin Callahan (i), Tomahawk

Independent:Todd Frederick, Merrill

Republican: Donna M. Rozar (i), Marshfield

Democratic:Lisa Boero, Marshfield

Republican: Pat Snyder (i), Schofield

Democratic: Kristin Conway, Schofield

Republican: John Spiros (i), Marshfield

Challengers: None

Republicans: James W. Edming (i), Glen Flora; Michael Bub, Medford

Democratic:Elizabeth Riley, Hayward

Libertarian: Wade A. Mueller, Athens, still pending state approval

Independent, Libertarian: Tom Rasmussen, Medford, still pending state approval

Republicans*: Kelly Schremp (i), Benjamin Seidlerand Pam Van Ooyen.

Incumbent Sheriff Scott Parks is not seeking reelection. Parks endorsed his chief deputy, Chad Billeb, in announcing his decision last summer.

Republican: Chad Billeb

Challengers: None

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Contact reporter Alan Hovorka at 715-345-2252 or ahovorka@gannett.com.Follow him on Twitter at @ajhovorka.

More here:
Wausau election roundup: 23rd and 29th state Senate seats up for grabs this fall - Wausau Daily Herald

Gary Gerstles newThe Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Eraedifyingly recounts the ascent and dominance in American thought and public policy of neoliberalism, which downgraded the role of government and allowed a greater role for private market forces for almost 50 years before having to reckon with a newly ascendant populism on the right and progressivism on the left. Philanthropy plays a part in his account, or at least part of his account.

Gerstle is the Paul Mellon Professor of American History at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Sidney Sussex College. Grossly oversimplifying, his book generally and well-describes Presidents Ronald Reagan as laying the post-New Deal and -Great Society neoliberal orders foundations and Bill Clinton as consolidating its gains.

Conservative grantmaking foundations helped along the way, by Gerstles telling. While he doesnt promise anything more, almost all of his specific examples have also been noted byothersin the past, prominently including researchers and activists who wanted liberal and progressive grantmakers to mimic the conservatives successful giving strategies and tactics.

Powell, Olin, Coors, and the Kochs

As have othersand, arguably,similarlytoo tidily and convenientlyGerstle also specifically relies on thePowell memofor his narrative. Written in 1971 by soon-to-be-Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell, the memo advised the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to undertake activities to better and more staunchly defend capitalism and the free-enterprise system against the then-increasing number and severity of attacks on it.

[T]he public release of the Powell memo was a gift to the neoliberal movement, according to Gerstle inThe Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order, for it served as a rallying point the for many businesspeople, intellectuals, and would-be policymakers who wanted to restore free enterprise and free markets to the center of American life.

Gerstle quotes successful businessman and John M. Olin Foundation founder John M. Olin as writing The Powell memorandum gives reason for a well organized effort to reestablish the validity and importance of the American free enterprise system, and the book says brewer Joseph Coors, Jr., was also inspired by the Powell memo in helping finance creation in 1973 of The Heritage Foundationwhich quickly established a reputation as the most politically aggressive think tank in the neoliberal firmament.

Gerstle continues by citing the wealthy Koch familys funding, beginning in 1974, of what became the Cato Institute, which [n]o think tank would outdo in terms of its hostility to the New Deal order and the fierceness of its belief in libertarian principles. Created in 1977, moreover, the Manhattan Institute supported George GildersWealth and Poverty, which became one of the bibles of the Reagan administration and the emerging neoliberal order on its publication in 1981.

Slow to Recognize

Liberals and leftists were slow to recognize the size and coordinated nature of this counter-offensive, Gerstle writes,

in part because it was taking shape outside the districts in which they lived and worked. These districts included universities (and the college towns surrounding them), Georgetown salons, labor unions, institutions such as Brookings and the Ford and Carnegie foundations, newspapers such as theNew York Timesand the three television networksABC, CBS, and NBCthat dominated national broadcast media. They constituted a kind of New Deal order establishment, now pushed to the left by radical student movements.

Gerstle goes on to note the Powell memos call to arms was to build what the journalist Sydney Blumenthal long identified as a counter establishment of conservative and market-oriented think tanks, newspapers, other forms of media, and vehicles of political mobilization.

Olin, Coors, the Kochs, and others viewed their businesses as having been built with family blood, sweat, and tears, according toThe Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order. They interpreted their economic success as a reflection of their gumption, talent, and forbearance, on the one hand, and of Americas commitment to free enterprise, on the other. The notion that great reward awaited those taking great risk was central to their understanding of the American dream.

These courageous risk-takers, Gerstle correctly writes, saw unfair regulation-enforcing

government officials as the leading edge of communist tyranny or, in Lewis Powells words, of state socialism.

The anger among these proprietary capitalists at government and the New Deal order gave the Reagan revolution its radical edge. Its members never ceased being inspired by Barry Goldwaters declaration in his 1964 acceptance speech that extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. No expense was to be spared in mounting this defense, which is why the Kochs, the Coorses, and their ilk were investing large sums from their personal fortunes into foundations, PACs, and candidates that, in their eyes, might save their enterprises and the American system of freedom that had made them possible.

Adoption, and Elitism

Gerstle later, also correctly, observes: That a new generation of Democrats had begun adopting neoliberal principles as their own for and in the post-Reagan period was a sure sign of this ideologys ascent. In a first contrastto that which the pre- and actual Reagan-era conservative and libertarian givers didhowever, the book does not really devote as much space to that which liberal givers, including the large establishment philanthropic ones, did to promote the rise of neoliberalism leading up to and during either the Clinton or Obama eras.

Gerstle does passingly hint at the nature and degree of some of this support when referencing harsh critiques of Hillary Clinton by fellow 2016 Democratic presidential-primary candidate Bernie Sanders. Clinton

did not understand why the internationalist credentials she had acquired as a hard-working and world-traveling secretary of state were now seen by many as a liability. She did not seem to comprehend the conflict between the close relations she had developed with world leaders, on the one hand, and the donations these leaders were making to her familys Clinton Foundation, on the other.

It was hard for her to understand how thoroughly she had come to be seen as encased in the world of a privileged and globe-trotting elite.

Beginning in 2017, seeking a strengthened progressivism, Gerstle goes on, some left-leaning donors with ample reserves began to encourage and coordinate the kind of fundraising efforts that every movement in America aspiring to become a political order requires.

Slow to Recognize (II)

In a second contrasthere, to that which GerstlesThe Rise and Fall of Neoliberalismdevotes to conservative givers promoting the rise of government-skeptical, market-minded neoliberalismhe does not devote much space to what they may have done to contribute to its fall. Such would have been difficult, of course; theres actually not much to document or summarize.

Conservative philanthropyflat-footedlymissed that which gave rise to the political, and cultural, ascendance of Donald Trump and Trumpism, whatever that might now end up meaning and becoming. It wasnt doing, or even recognizing, anything different. Like the liberals and progressives of yesteryear, it sure seems to have been slow to recognize a serious counter-offensive. Unlike in the 1960s and 70s, it didnt seem, pre-2016, to be too forward-looking; in fact, it sure seems to have become too insular, too removed, too elite in and of itself.

For the most part, in further fact, its still trying to catch up, and either engage or just somehow deal with the creation and growth of whats an aggressive new conservative counter-establishment of sorts. For future researchers and activists, there must be a conceptual, infrastructure-shaping equivalent to the Powell memo out there, if even only to again overhype. One senses both conservative counter-establishments could currently use a good one.

This articleoriginally appeared in theGiving Reviewon May 19, 2022.

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Philanthropy in The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order - Capital Research Center