This piece has absolutely nothing to do with Pagan spirituality. It does have a lot to do with why I am who I am.
Two low-profile brothers have recently been in the news as
the largest funders of attacks on the scientific evidence cited for global
warming. They are also and have always been major figures in the oil industry. As it turns out I knew one of them
years ago, and probably would not have ended up being a scholar had I not. He
set me on that path.
When I was in high school in Wichita, Kansas, I had become a
young conservative attracted to right-wing conspiracy theories. One afternoon I was in the American
Opinion Bookstore, a John Birch Society operation filled with books on the
Communist conspiracy.
Charles Koch saw me there, led me over to the small
classical liberal section he had persuaded them to have, and bought me my first
serious books on social theory – volumes by Ludwig von Mises and other leading
and historical classical liberal scholars. This was heady stuff for a young man just discovering his
love of history and ideas. It also
began weaning me away from my high school level understanding of Communist conspiracies
and other foolishness. I will
always be grateful to him for doing so, and he was one of three to whom I
dedicated my first book.
At the time I knew him, Charles Koch was a libertarian, and
dismissive of the John Birch Society conspiracy theories in which his dad
indulged. (Ironically, the initial
Koch fortune came from doing business with the early Soviet Union, and perhaps
Fred Koch, sr. felt some guilt over it.)
Charles was also interested in ideas, and enjoyed discussing them. I fondly remember sitting with some friends
and him in his folks’ house talking about Abraham Maslow’s work. Especially his Toward a Psychology of Being. We all liked it. If I remember correctly, he also
opposed the Vietnam War – but my memory may be off base here.
I met his brother David, but never got to know him. He was much less interested in ideas
and philosophy than was his brother.
That I do remember.
As the years passed my visits with him slowed, and
eventually ceased. Over time I
became less and less of a libertarian, and I guess Charles did as well. But we apparently moved in different
directions. I became more open to
democratic government even while continuing to support the market. Today I no longer consider myself a
libertarian.
Charles apparently gradually shifted to supporting those
‘conservatives’ who sought a more authoritarian and intrusive government so
long as it did not tax his great wealth.
In doing so he apparently downgraded his youthful love of freedom as
something more than freedom to make lots of money. I say “apparently” because I am not sure why – but he has certainly funded people who are very very far removed from being classical liberals.
The Kochs still help fund a number of organizations that
among other things continue to help people better understand the workings of
markets. These organizations
taught me a lot when I was younger and I am still very friendly with some
people I met back then. But back
then the ideological opponent was state socialism in its various guises and
hubris over the ability of experts to plan the good life, and their push-back
was important. This push back
was primarily intellectual, effectively criticizing the arguments of its
advocates.
As state socialism failed, and ceased to be a threat, and
the most arrogant plans for redesigning America lost their glitter, the target
for many within these organizations shifted to any kind of regulation at
all. ‘Socialism’ kept being
defined downwards. Along the way
the attacks became increasingly political and personal because, to my mind
anyway, the evidence on their side became increasingly weak. But, as I have written so often,
organizations seek to survive and will do so by redefining their reason for
existence.
Who was the instigator and who was the target in this
dynamic will depend on historical research. Maybe the organizations convinced the Kochs and other
funders and maybe they simply sought to please them. Maybe it was reciprocal. Whatever the dynamic, a reasonably open intellectual agenda
increasingly became a closed one.
Research was to provide ammunition for what was already believed, not
investigate anything in an open minded way.
And so the classical liberal paradigm became a rigidly
ideological one, defined as opposition to anything by government regardless of
the evidence. Other, perhaps, than
waging war. (This is not the case for all classical liberal organizations, but
it is so for a great many.)
Markets, the Environment, and Global Warming
The Koch’s role in funding a variety of organizations that
often viciously attack the scientists involved in global warming studies is sad
evidence for me of this outcome.
There is absolutely nothing in free market thought that
prejudges the truth or falsity of global warming issues. The reality of human caused global
warming is not intrinsically anti-capitalist or anti-market.
If, as most scientists who study the issue believe, the problem of global warming is
significantly man-made, then CO2 is a pollution, but one where each person’s
contribution is too small to be dealt with at an individual level. So government action is needed. But in this case a carbon tax could
replace taxes on positive things, such as wages, in order to pay for Social
Security. Labor would become
cheaper for the employer without any cost to the worker, jobs would therefore
increase, and people would constantly seek out ways to minimize carbon
creation. Such a tax could be
‘revenue neutral.’ From a broad libertarian or free market perspective this is
a win-win arrangement.
A carbon tax would also reduce our dependence on foreign
oil, which diminishes the rationale for a big military, troops overseas, and
incessant wars. The power of Arab despotisms is weakened as they have
less money. Again, from a
libertarian perspective, this is win-win, because war is the single largest
cause for the growth of government. So from a genuinely free market perspective
reducing dependence on oil is probably more a gain than a loss.
The Koch Industries have
responded to the Greenpeace study of their
influence in funding global warming denial, arguing
We believe the political response to climate issues should be
based on sound science. Both a free society and the scientific method require
an open and honest airing of all sides, not demonizing and silencing those with
whom you disagree. We’ve strived to encourage an intellectually honest debate
on the scientific basis for claims of harm from greenhouse gases. We have tried
to help bring out the facts of the potential effectiveness and costs of policies
proposed to deal with climate, as it’s crucial to understand whether proposed
initiatives to reduce greenhouse gases will achieve desired environmental goals
and what effects they would likely have on the global economy.
Who could possibly oppose this
logic? Not me. But I think it is
PR boilerplate. Too many of the
attacks on global warming science have focused on anything but the science. Many in the organizations supported by
the Kochs have attacked the personal motives of the scientists and emphasized
organizational abuses that are endemic in all human groups, but not indicative
of bad scientific data. In one case, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, I have personal knowledge,
and am not simply reporting what I have read. The Competitive Enterprise Institute is basically an attack
organization existing to discredit environmental concerns without regard for
the truth of their claims.
Now apparently money trumps
liberty. Perhaps Maslow’s
That so many organizations were quietly funded by Koch money
while impugning the personal motives of so many in the scientific community is a
sad sign of the intellectual and moral collapse of the conservative and
classical liberal community in America and perhaps also the narrowing of the
vision of the man who got me started as a scholar.
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