Anglosphere Oligarchs – Koch Atlas Network Think Tanks

We have heard much of supposed ‘libertarian’ think tanks or PR outfits in the Anglosphere influencing policy, especially of the right, via media and lobbying, euphemistically known as ‘Koch Network’ or the ‘Kochtopus’ with a fondness for fossil fuels and climate science denial.

New Yorker journalist Jane Mayer investigated several years ago for her book ‘Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right’ (2017) which included insight into oligarch donors Mellon-Scaife, Olin, Bradley, DeVos and Coors. 

Further, historian Nancy MacLean in researching her book ‘Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America’ (2017) she stumbled across the economic muse of Kochs, ‘segregation economist’ James Buchanan.

Not only does this network exist in the US, it’s global via the ‘Atlas Network’ of think tanks especially influential in Canada, UK and Australia. On the latter ‘charity’  i.e. IPA Institute of Public Affairs Australia, both US Bradley & Olin Foundations had been funders in the ‘80s and ‘90s, while a key funder now is mining magnate & heiress Gina Rhinehart.

Further, in the UK journalists have researched similar links centred near and around Tufton St. think tanks influencing Conservative Party policies and behind Brexit, including Taxpayers’ Alliance, IEA Institute of Economics Affairs, Global Warming Policy Foundation or Net Zero Watch, Policy Exchange etc. and a ‘Tanton Network’ anti-immigrant NGO Migration Watch. The ByLine Times published an article several years ago describing ‘Brexit & Climate Science Denial: The Tufton Street Network’ (2019)

Following are key excerpts from an excellent DeSmog article outlining not just Kochs, but the invisible donors in the background: 

‘Beyond Koch: Meet the Other Right-Wing Oligarchs Featured in Jane Mayer’s “Dark Money”’

By Steve Horn on Jan 21, 2016 @ 03:58 PST

The shenanigans of the “Kochtopus” have garnered most of the headlines — including here — pertaining to reviews of New Yorker staff writer Jane Mayer’s new book, Dark Money.

But the Koch Brothers and Koch Industries’ right-wing family foundation network are far from the only big money influencers featured in the must-read book which has jumped to #4 on the Best Sellers list at Amazon.com.

Enter the Scaife, Olin and Bradley family fortunes, all three of which have served as key nodes through which the right-wing have tried to reshape the public policy landscape within (and beyond) the U.S. in the years following the Cold War until present day. If those family names sound familiar to DeSmog readers, they should: we have a profile in our database for Scaife and have written fairly extensively about Olin and Bradley…..

Scaife, “League to Save Carthage” and ALEC

In 1964, Richard Scaife — namesake of the Scaife Family Foundations, whose money came largely from the Gulf Oil fortune — helped create a group called the League to Save Carthage, harkening back to the city conquered and colonized by the Roman Empire now situated as a suburb of Tunis, Tunisia. 

“This little-heralded group was just the first small step in what would become an improbably successful effort by one of the richest men in the country, along with a few other extraordinarily wealthy conservative benefactors, to cast themselves as field generals…in a strategic war of ideas aimed at sacking American politics,” Mayer wrote. 

Eventually, the Scaifes would call one tentacle of their Scaife Family Foundations the Carthage Foundation. But its origins in the League to Save Carthage are crucial if, for no other reason, than how one of its members, Lewis Powell, became a future U.S. Supreme Court Justice.

Before joining the Supreme Court bench, Powell penned the so-called Powell Memo which, at the time, was marked confidential. Written on behalf of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and officially titled, “Attack on American Free Enterprise System,” Powell’s treatise called for Big Business to pour money into universities, the media, think-tanks, the conventional political apparatus and other key institutions as a means to fend off what Powell described as the ongoing onslaught against the free enterprise system.

Among other key pieces of political infrastructure funded by Scaife, he was one of the first major foundation funders of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

Mayer cites a historical letter by ALEC founder Paul Weyrich’s aide in her book, in which the aide thanks Scaife for his support of the corporate bill mill for the statehouses.

“ALEC is well on its way to fulfilling the dream of those who started the organization thanks wholly to your confidence and the tremendous generosity of the Scaife Family Charitable Trusts,” wrote the aide in 1976, a few years after ALEC got off the ground in 1973, according to the letter cited by Mayer. 

Olin & Law and Economics

Another influential family fortune featured in “Dark Money” is that of the Olins and in particular John M. Olin.

Jaded by his experience as a student at Cornell University, Olin believed universities served as brainwashing centers for liberals and the Left. So, Olin made it his life mission to spread conservative ideology onto U.S. college campuses.

Like Scaife and Gulf Oil, Olin made his bucks in part from the fossil fuel industry via the Olin Corporation, which manufactured blasting powder for coal mining companies. Olin Corporation found itself embroiled in a DDT production pollution scandal in the 1970’s, culminating in the federal government forcing the company to shut down its DDT unit.

In documenting several other environmental catastrophes that Olin Corporation perpetrated, Mayer suggests that the regulatory crackdown that occurred due to these incidents may have influenced the self-interested anti-regulatory posture taken by Olin and the foundation he created, , from a business point of view. Former Olin officials denied to Mayer this was the case.

Olin would move to endow the still-influential “Law and Economics” curriculum in law schools nationwide, which calls for a system of jurisprudence in which judges and lawyers incorporate free market economic analysis into their legal decisions and arguments.

Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation

Though covered in less depth than other families, the Bradley Foundation also earned a section in “Dark Money.” Just as Olin Foundation shuttered its operations, its Executive Director, Michael Joyce, was hired by the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, which had enjoyed a huge financial boost resulting from a corporate merger that catapulted the Bradley Foundation into the top 20 largest foundations in the U.S. 

The foundation also gives big donations to a fellow midwest-headquartered climate change denial organization: the Chicago-based Heartland Institute. 

Harry Bradley, was one of the founding members of the John Birch Society alongside the Koch Brothers’ father, Fred Koch. According to a Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel investigation, between 2001 and 2009 the Bradley Foundation “doled out nearly as much money as the seven Koch and Scaife foundations combined.”

A recently published paper titled “The Koch Effect”, by Harvard sociologist Theda Skocpol and Harvard government and social policy PhD student Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, describes the impact these family foundations, and in the case of their paper, the Kochs in particular have had on public policy in the U.S.

“In a disciplined way, the Koch network operates as a force field to the right of the Republican Party, exerting a strong gravitational pull on many GOP candidates and officeholders,” they wrote. “The overall effect is to re-set the range of issues and policy alternatives to which candidates and officeholders are responsive.”

Another case in point: the Kochs formerly funded (and some of its executives served on the Board of Trustees of) the Democratic Leadership Council, a think-tank and advocacy group pinpointed as pushing the Democratic Party rightward under President Bill Clinton.

Clinton formerly served as chairman of the DLC, and those who agree with the DLC‘s free market ideology, such as President Barack Obama, now call themselves New Democrats.

If anything, this rightward “force field” created by the influence of big money, serves as the genius and long-lasting impact of the Koch-Scaife-Olin-Bradley oligarch network’s donations and advocacy.’

For more related blogs and articles on Economics, Environment, Koch Network, Libertarian Economics, Political Strategy and Tanton Network, click through

Radical Libertarian Disinformation Machine – Koch Network by Nancy MacLean

James Buchanan – Economist – Koch Influencer – Radical Right Libertarian – Anglo Conservatives

Anglosphere – Radical Right Libertarian Socioeconomics and Authoritarianism

Brexit, Conservatives, Nativism, Libertarian Strategy, Single Market and the European Union

Anglosphere Nativist Libertarian Social Economic Policies or Return of Eugenics?

EU & Anglosphere – Refugees – Border Walls vs. Working Age Decline

While media, governments, think tanks, NGOs and politicians highlight, stress about, gaslight and promote negative tactics to stop refugees e.g. British government’s policies on channel crossings and using Rwanda as an offshore detention centre, there are gaps growing in the working age cohort due to demographic decline.

Not only is much of agitprop this drawn from old ideology by right wing or nativist politicians, while holding libertarian views on much else, a clear need for temporary and/or permanent immigration to plug employment gaps, pay taxes and support budgets for more retirees and pensioners using social services, is apparent.

Good examples are Britain and other OECD nations which share below replacement fertility, fewer youth and demographic decline in working age i.e. has passed the ‘demographic sweet spot’, but more retirees and ever increasing old age dependency ratios.

In short, we need well and better supported budgets for more retirees needing the support but they vote against their own interests e.g. Brexit?

See OECD data here on working age trends.

OECD (2023), Working age population (indicator). doi: 10.1787/d339918b-en (Accessed on 20 March 2023) 

However, nativist politics and talking points, targeting older voters on refugees, immigration, population growth and purported negative issues, then precludes the solutions i.e.  increase net migration, temporary or seasonal workers as ‘net financial budget contributors’ and more modest numbers of permanent migrants, going onto citizenship. 

Following analysis explains immigration and employment issues for the EU, from The EU Observer:

‘On migration, Europe needs to pivot from walls to work

By MICHELE LEVOY   BRUSSELS, 16. FEB, 07:00

It’s not news that Europe wants fewer migrants reaching its borders. What is less visible is that at the same time Europe is scrambling to get more migrants — to fill dramatic labour shortages, with little consideration for workers’ and human rights. The approach so far has been hypocritical, harmful — and self-defeating.

EU migration policies have long been promoting a narrative of migration as a threat, and something that should be tackled with a defensive and punitive approach.

The 2020 EU Migration Pact, still under negotiation, is billed as overhauling the EU migration system, but instead just expands existing measures like detention for anyone coming to Europe via irregular routes, including children, and speeding up deportations, while lowering human rights safeguards.

The never-ending fight against irregular migration

Last week, the European Council asked the Commission to fund border surveillance technology and to step up the use of visa agreements as a tool to pressure other countries into accepting swifter and more deportations of their citizens. Throughout 2022, several agreements were struck to increase joint policing at common borders, including between France and the UK, Germany and Switzerland, and Czechia and Slovakia.

The proposed revision of the Schengen Borders Code would allow border guards to stop and check people crossing borders internally within the EU if they believe that the individuals can’t prove their right to enter the country. There is little doubt that this amounts to legitimising racial profiling.

The demand for workforce

While Europe cracks down on migration, it also discreetly tries to get more migrants to fill ever more dramatic labour shortages in key sectors from hospitality to construction, from transportation to health care.

In practice, this means granting residence permits to people already living in the country through ongoing or new regularisation mechanisms, and creating work permits for people to come to work in the EU from abroad. Yet many of these measures may be driven by the demand for workforce, with little attention for workers’ rights.

France is negotiating a regularisation scheme for shortage occupations — but it’s been criticised for focusing on workers employed in the most physically demanding professions, while leaving out other key sectors and skills.

In January 2023, the right-wing Italian government increased the number of available permits for non-EU workers from 69,700 in 2022 to 82,705 but more than half are for seasonal work, which is often extremely precarious and rife with exploitation.

The 2020 Italian regularisation was largely prompted by fears that the country’s fields would remain without workers due to COVID-19 restrictions on international travel. The regularisation kept workers dependent on their employers, and conditions to apply were extremely strict and burdensome. The result is that only a third of the applicants managed to regularise their stay….’

For more articles about Ageing Democracy, Demography, EU European Union, Immigration, Media, Pensions, Tanton Network and White Nationalism:

Immigration to Australia – More Opportunities for Temporary Residents?

Collective Narcissism, Ageing Electorates, Pensioner Populism, White Nativism and Autocracy

Narcissistic Political Leaders – NPD Narcissistic Personality Disorder – Collective Narcissism – Cognitive Dissonance – Conspiracy Theories – Populism

Ageing Democracy, Nativism and Populism

Economic Research – No Negative Relationship with Immigration and Wages, Income or Employment

Immigration to Australia – More Opportunities for Temporary Residents?

Interesting analysis from Grattan Institute in Melbourne on how to improve Australia’s migration system, especially for temporary entrants. 

However, although one agrees with the broad argument and sentiments, many assumptions and factors cited including the need to make more temporary residents permanent, would require raising, for now, the modest permanent cap, guaranteed to kick off a negative media campaign.

Further, one thinks it overestimates the desire for ‘temporary migrants’, caught under the ‘nebulous’ (Ian Dunt UK) NOM net overseas migration, to remain in Australia permanently after studies, travel, work etc.? 

On high numbers of temporary residents in Australia it misses important dynamics including Covid, precluding departures and department budget or headcount cuts which significantly slowed immigration processing? 

We have observed a generation of dog whistling all things immigration and population growth to the point where many Australians, including employers, view ‘immigrants’ and supposed ‘population growth’ as negatives to be avoided, or with antipathy? 

House prices and/or rentals may not be related to ‘immigration, especially as no analysis exists apart from FIRE sector’s agitprop in media using PR factors as indicators of market health eg. ‘prices’ not ‘real value’, advertised ‘prices’, auction clearance rates, claims of ‘high immigration’ etc.; but now prices are dropping?  

Capping temporary visas would be chaotic i.e. who decides, ignores multiple types and complexity of visa system, and Australian citizens also; nativists have argued for decades a strictly nativist ‘one person in, one person out’ border regime? 

Warnings of employment perils for temporary migrants, but local employees share similar issues, i.e. non compliance of awards and conditions by employers, with support from unions?  

Nominating a median level salary threshold for any skilled entrant ignores the need for unskilled employment gaps to be filled too?

At least this starts asking some questions and challenges long held assumptions on the benefits, or not, of immigration to Australia.  By coincidence Euractiv published an article titled ‘Sisyphus’ skills shortage’ that challenges the fixed or ‘steady state’ view of employment, insights include:

‘In politics, it’s normal to think about jobs as if there were a fixed amount of potential jobs that society should aim to fill. In this mindset, labour force shortages are half-empty glasses that we need to fill.

The danger of looking at labour markets in such a way is that there is always a danger of overflowing, in which new water pushes out the water already in the glass. This is the picture politicians have in mind when they warn that migrants might steal the jobs of locals.

However, the picture is not only dangerous – it is also wrong. An economy is not static, as a glass of water, an economy is dynamic…

…Companies and governments should do all they can to invest in getting the skills they need, be it through educational programmes, making it easier for women to take part in the labour force, or through labour-friendly immigration systems, even if it is a Sisyphean task.

Labourforce shortages are a sign of a thriving economy, skills shortages point to an innovative economy. Only in a depression is there no skills shortage.

Or, as French philosopher Albert Camus put it: “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”’

The Conversation article excerpts from ‘How to improve the migration system for the good of temporary migrants – and Australia’ (Published: February 27, 2023)

‘The biggest review of Australia’s migration system in decades is due to be delivered to the federal government.

Commissioned by the Albanese government last September, its task is to identify reforms that will increase economic productivity, address challenges such as an ageing population, and make Australia a more desirable destination for highly skilled migrants.’

But perhaps its thorniest job is how to provide temporary migrants with clear pathways to permanent residency and citizenship. This won’t be easy, given how much the number of temporary migrants in Australia now outstrips the permanent visas on offer.

It’s impossible to run an uncapped temporary migration program with a capped permanent program and offer all long-term temporary visa holders a road to permanent residency.

Something has to give.’

No, as temporary entrants or residents, described as migrants is incorrect, as most are international students, and understand that long term permanence requires an application for migration, which comes under the permanent cap; many are content being temporary residents but baulk at permanent.

‘Simple arithmetic: demand exceeds supply’

No, as temporary entrants or residents under the NOM net overseas migration, being described as migrants is incorrect, as most are international students who understand that long term permanence requires an application for migration, which comes under the permanent cap (they understand this system better than Australians).

‘This is far in excess of the cap on permanent visas offered. In 2019, the Morrison government reduced the cap from 190,000 to 160,000 places a year. The Albanese government raised it to 195,000 for the 2022-23 financial year. It remains to be seen what will happen in future years.

The queue is getting longer

Not all temporary visa-holders want to stay in Australia, but many do. Most migrants are already in Australia on a temporary visa when they receive their permanent visa.

But with a greater number of temporary residents vying for permanent residency, the wait times are rising, and migrants’ prospects of success are declining.’

Contestable as temporary migration is a solution used as ‘churnover’ of ‘net financial budget contributors’ (not staying long term nor accessing social security later), slow or no processing may be ideologically driven e.g. cutting department head counts or costs and creating uncertainty for applicants i.e. ‘hostile environment’ with suboptimal employment conditions, while Covid helped in backing up both applications and temporary residents onshore.

‘Many employers are reluctant to hire international graduates on temporary visas, instead hiring applicants who already have permanent residency. This helps explain why a quarter of recent graduates (on temporary graduate visas) are either unemployed or not looking for work. Most that do work earn no more than working holiday-makers, despite being more qualified.’

Much of this confusion can be blamed on local and imported nativist agitprop inspired by the original US fossil fueled Malthusian ZPG Zero Population Growth movement viewing (locally), post 1970s ‘immigrants’ as an environmental ‘hygiene’ issue and foil to demands for carbon pricing and transition to renewable sources; most media in Australia unwittingly reflect or even encourage similar attitudes of antipathy towards immigrants.

‘What to do about it?

Offering a permanent visa to every long-term temporary migrant who wants one would require an enormous, and unpopular, increase in Australia’s permanent intake.

Even a smaller, more realistic, increase in the permanent intake would come with costs – notably more expensive housing.’

On housing, there is little compelling evidence or analysis when house prices are falling, even more so in real terms, while most real estate data are PR factors?

‘Capping temporary visas would reduce pressure on already-rising rents. But it would also make it harder for some employers and mean fewer international students paying fees to universities.’

Create chaos through more bureaucracy being applied to foreign entrants i.e. takes decision making of education institutions out of their hands, plus individual students, backpackers etc. and requires an entry approval system a la nativists’ ‘one in one out’; increasing hurdles for everyone including Australians if too many want to return in a short time?

‘So what should we do?

We should continue to give priority to younger, skilled migrants for permanent visas. Pathways to permanent residency should not be automatic nor based on how long temporary migrants have been in Australia. A guaranteed pathway to permanent residency in Australia will only encourage more people to come here on temporary visas, and those already here to stay even longer.

We should also avoid creating new temporary visa programs for less skilled workers in areas such as agriculture or the care economy, because they only add to demand for more permanent visas down the track.

We must acknowledge that not all temporary migrants can stay in Australia, even if they want to.’

Fair, but why is it about doing something about migrants versus ensuring coverage and compliance of employee wages and conditions by employers, with unions, regulators, peak employer groups and local councils for both locals and migrants?

‘Change the selection criteria

The current policy grants permanent skilled work visas on the basis of occupation. This should change to whether migrants can earn a good wage – demonstrated by a sponsoring employer being willing to pay them at least A$85,000 a year.

Another reform would be to allow temporary skilled migrants to work in any occupation, provided they earn more than A$70,000 a year, so they can build their skills and careers in Australia before securing permanent residency.’

Why the arbitrary near median salary threshold when there is a need not only for highly skilled temporary immigrants, but also low skilled below median salary, as our demographic decline does not discriminate between skilled and unskilled occupations and employees, nor does mortality?

‘Creating a better system for points-tested visas – which is how many students secure permanent residency – would also help. The current system encourages migrants to gain points through spending thousands of dollars on low-value courses, or by moving to regional areas where there are fewer job opportunities.

Instead, there should be a single points-tested visa, where points are only allocated for characteristics that point to a migrants’ future success in Australia.

The aim of the migration system should be to create clearer pathways to permanent residency in Australia. But that doesn’t mean that everyone who wants to stay can do so.’

For more related articles on Ageing democracy, Australian immigration news, Demography, Economics, International Student, NOM Net Overseas Migration, Political Strategy and Younger Generations click through or read below:

Economic Research – No Negative Relationship with Immigration and Wages, Income or Employment

Immigration Immigrants and Public Misconceptions

Immigration is not Cause of Unemployment

Immigration Population Growth Decline NOM Net Overseas Migration

Population Pyramids, Economics, Ageing, Pensions, Demography and Misunderstanding Data Sets

International Education – Experience of Students and Stakeholders

International Education – Foreign Student – Value