The whole point of writing of ‘greedy bastards’ was to expose the social structures – above all those of social class – that major owners of capital surf, and with the help of (a) the politicians and state personnel they purchase, and (b) an assortment of old and middle-class allies that facilitate their endeavours, to fortify and extend their privileges and advantages via relentless capital accumulation.
I have written and blogged extensively about social structures as causal mechanisms that shape the social world we collectively inhabit, only too often in ways it is beyond people’s reflexivity to challenge. I shall doubtless add to my consideration of those to whom the adjectives ‘greedy’ and ‘bastard’ might be applied.
In this blog, however, I focus on dark money and think tanks, both of them key concepts if we are to understand, and help explain (the sociologist’s task), how rabid capital accumulation is able to proceed to the detriment and immiseration of the poor, vulnerable and disadvantaged.
Dark money, a familiar term in US politics, refers to those monies clandestinely invested to warp democratic processes like elections. Dark money disseminates ‘ideology’ (a world view that reflects particular vested interests) at the expense of ‘knowledge’ (an evidence-based world view that reflects applications of the scientific project) (that all scientific knowledge is fallible is true but quite another matter). Think tanks are crucial devices for disseminating ideology.
One route to influence in the public sphere of the lifeworld, a form of ‘lifeworld colonisation’ in Habermas’ terminology, is via the funding of think tanks. Some of the most influential think tanks are listed below, together with (a) their political orientation, and (b) their degree of transparency re-their funders. I have taken as a measure of transparency a rating from A (totally open) to E (totally closed) deployed by the ‘UK Campaign for Think Tank Transparency’. (A) indicates that the think tank is open about its income, displays funding details on its website, names funders, and declares the amounts given. (E) indicates that the think tank fails all these tests.
Adam Smith Institute (ASI)
Main focus of the ASI is the introduction of free market policies. (E)
Centre for Policy Studies (CPS)
Founded by Thatcher in 1974, the CPS aims to promote free-market policies and limit the role of the state. (E)
Centre for Social Justice (CSJ)
Established by Duncan Smith in 2004 to seek solutions to social breakdown and poverty, with a focus on the voluntary sector combatting poverty. (D)
Demos
Founded in 1993, Demos is a cross-party think tank interested in welfare and public services, education, citizenship and social media. (B)
Fabian Society
Founded in 1884 and affiliated to the Labour Party, the Fabian Society is a major left-of-centre think tank. (A)
Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA)
One of the oldest in the UK, the IEA is a high-profile rightwing think tank that promotes free market solutions to a wide range of social and economic issues. ((E)
High Pay Centre (HPC)
Set up to monitor top levels of pay. (A)
Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS)
Established to provide independent research on economic and fiscal policy. (A)
Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR)
Was formed following Labour’s 1987 election defeat, aiming to invigorate leftwing thinking. (B)
The Legatum Institute.
Set up as an international, right-of-centre liberal think tank focused on revitalising capitalism and democracy. (C)
New Economics Foundation (NEF)
An independent, left-of-centre ‘think and do’ think tank that aims to promote alternative economic models, focusing also on social justice and environmental issues. (A)
Policy Exchange
A right-wing small-government think tank that conducts research into poverty and social mobility, public services and economic issues. (E)
Reform
An independent right-of-centre think tank that seeks to set out a way to lower public spending and increase prosperity. (C)
Resolution Foundation
Founded in 2005 to produce high-quality research and raise the profile of the challenges facing those on low to middle incomes and to develop policy solutions. (B)
Social Market Foundation (SMF)
The SMF is an independent, liberal think tank that aims to combine market economics with social justice. (B)
Tax Justice Network
Launched in 2003 as an independent, left-of-centre and ‘activist’ think tank to push for ‘justice’ and systematic change in relation to tax, tax havens and financial globalisation. (A)
TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA)
A rightwing think tank established in 2004 to campaign for lower taxation and for reducing public expenditure. (E)
This list comprises some of the main, ‘loudest’ and most influential think tanks. Two immediate points are in order. First, it will be apparent that those described as right-of-centre or right wing are the least transparent re-funding (almost all of them rating an (E)), while those towards the opposite end of the political spectrum are characterised by a much greater degree of transparency (almost all of them rating an (A). And second, it must be remarked that the mainstream media, having long since abandoned the expertise found in academia, rely increasingly on representatives from think tanks. This being so, the – often ideological – allegiances of these spokespersons is a matter of huge import. Who is paying them to say what, and in who’s interests? Currently, rightwing think tanks are conspicuously over-represented in the mainstream media.
Consider the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA). According to openDemocracy, the IEA, an extremely influential think tank, has breached charity regulations on political independence. This free market think tank is under investigation after concerns were brought to the attention of the Charity Commission. It has strong links with several Conservative MPs, including Ministers. It does not disclose its funders. Moreover it has been challenged before: the Charity Commission found that a hypothetical Conservative manifesto jointly written by the IEA and the TaxPayers’ Alliance – calling for tax cuts and further privatisation – infringed against charity guidelines on political activity. Andrew Purkiss, a former Charity Commission board member called on the regulator to act against the IEA:
‘The IEA are basically a political organisation. I have never really accepted that they are principally there for education and research. They are there to promote an agenda. They obviously feel that they are on a roll, that they are looked to by that particular brand of right wing, free market Brexiteers … If they were not a charity they would simply be categorised as a right wing think tank that promotes particular ideological views.’
The IEA has strong links with pro-Brexit Conservatives. Dominic Raab is a strong supporter, appearing at IEA events. Matt Hancock, the new Health Minister, has received donations from an IEA Chair. On the 70th anniversary of the NHS, the IEA said it was time to look to health insurance systems in Europe. (The IEA is also funded from the USA via the “American Friends of the IEA’, which was set up to allow US-based corporations and individuals to donate to the IEA: more than $500,000 has been donated since 2010.)
Let’s stick with Brexit for a while. The Guardian, in a rare burst of investigative reporting, has reported that American donors have been giving money to US fundraising bodies that pass on these donations to four think tanks in Britain: $5.6 million (£4.3 million) has been donated to these US entities since 2008. The four British think tanks implicated? It’s not rocket science: the Institute of Economic Affairs, the Adam Smith Institute, Policy Exchange and the Legatum Institute. This quartet of right wing think tanks are proponents of radical free trade deals with reduced regulation, a prospectus pleasing to big American businesses which have opposed Europe’s tighter regulations since the 1008/9 financial crash.
The IEA, the Adam Smith Institute and the Legatum Institute are part of the Atlas Network, which claims to connect ‘a global network of more than 475 free-market organisations in over 90 countries to the ideas and resources needed to advance the cause of liberty.’ As we have seen, the IEA has been firmly pro-Brexit. Undercover filming by Greenpeace in 2018 recorded Michael Carnuccio, the head of an Oklahoma-based libertarian think tank, the E Foundation, saying his organisation was planning to pour cash into the IEA, not least to secure Brexit (the IEA denies receiving this and other American monies).
Earlier this year the IEA published a paper by the head of its trade and competition policy unit, Shanker Singham, a lawyer and former Washington lobbyist, saying that the UK could ‘deliver the Brexit prize’ by negotiating radical free-trade agreements with the US and other countries; it called for the removal of tariffs and many of the controls put on financial services, including hedge funds and banks post-crash. It also called for opening all services to competition, including the health service, scrapping many of the EU regulations on data protection, pharmaceuticals and food safety and chemicals and reducing taxes. It argued that civil servants could be replaced by politically-appointed trade negotiators. (Singham previously worked at Legatum, where he was said to have helped Boris Johnson and Michael Gove draft a letter to the PM pushing for a hard Brexit.) I could go on; in fact I will stay with this theme for just a little longer.
In early December 2018, the IEA published a blueprint called ‘Plan A+’. The lead protagonist was Shanker Singham. A week later the IEA was instructed to remove Plan A+ from its website by the Charity Commission: it broke the rules on political campaigning (again). The plan belonged in a family of such plans advocating a hard Brexit and what the Guardian referred to as ‘a bonfire of tariffs, quotas and anti-competitive rules.’ It opposed what in the US in particular is regarded as ‘protectionism’. All services and government procurement should be ‘opened up’ to international competition:
‘protections designed to avoid workers being exploited or undercut by cheap migrant labour, which, for example, limit the number of hours people can be asked to work, or require parity of pay with local workers for those posted abroad, should be removed … ‘
‘… Britain will have to make concessions on standards the Americans find irksome, especially in food, agriculture and other goods. The things the US complains about and wants conceded include limits on pesticide residues and hormone-disrupting chemicals in food, nutritional labelling, the use of genetically modified organisms, the export of animal byproducts including some specified risk material for BSE, food additives such as flavourings that the EU has banned because of concerns over safety, hygiene rules including chlorine treatments on poultry and other meats, and animal-rearing standards such as the use of growth-promoting chemicals in pork and hormones in beef production.’
Plan A+ is most detailed on financial services after Brexit … It reads like special pleading for particular bank, hedge fund and wealth manager interests. Proposals include reducing some of the capital requirements on banks, and lifting several controls on asset managers’ trading. The bank surcharge, which claws back some of the huge cost to the taxpayer of bailing out the sector after the 2007-08 financial crash, and was introduced to deter banks taking riskier debt, should be cut …’
Once again I could go on, but there is hopefully sufficient detail here. I will terminate this section by noting – courtesy of the Guardian – that Plan A+ followed on from the Ideal US-UK free trade agreement, a draft legislative agreement drawn up by the US-based Cato Institute (co-founded by billionaire oil magnet Charles Koch, and which frequently lobbies against climate change legislation) and the new UK Initiative for Free Trade (which includes among its supporters Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Liam Fox), as well as nine other right wing think tanks (all of which, bar one, belong to the Atlas Network). Predictably, personnel overlap. If the toxic Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) was seen off, its ‘greedy bastard’ offspring are now asserting themselves.
I conclude this brief evidence-based excursion on dark money and clandestinely-funded think-tank ideology with a reference to the work of a colleague, Tom Slater. He is what I might term an ‘action geographer’. In a paper in 2012 published in Antipode he showed how another right wing think tank, the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), founded by greedy bastard, Iain Duncan-Smith (architect of Universal Credit), has invoked a littany of social pathologies (family breakdown, worklessness, antisocial behaviour, personal irresponsibility, out-of-wedlock childbirth, dependency) to manufacture ignorance and rationalise welfare ‘reform’ (ie benefit cuts).
In a later paper, in 2018, published in Sociological Review, Tom exposed the role of another right wing think tank, Policy Exchange, in what he calls ‘agnotology, or the intentional production of ignorance. He shows how Policy Exchange has campaigned to attribute what he calls ‘territorial stigma’ to living spaces castigated as ‘sink estates’, thereby allowing people living in such envirnoments to be neglected, ‘sanctioned’, punished or worse.
What does this blog amount to? And how does it fit with the neophyte series on ‘greedy bastards’? I hope the answer is clear. Dark money and clandestinely-funded right wing think tanks are means or devices that allow individual members of the hard core of our (transnational, nomadic) capitalist executive to make their purchase of policies conducive to the further accumulation of their capital from the state’s power elite acceptable to the public. What all this does is further expose the deep underlying social structures and relations of class and class conflict. Denial of class conflict is itself an manifestation of that conflict.