I was wondering what your opinions about Reason Magazine and The Cato Institute are. The only reason being that they promote a brand of libertarian-lite mixed with some Tea Partyishness.
Of course, the two seem to be tied up with the Koch Brothers and, lo and behold, as I was about to post this question, I noticed that David Gordon authored the lead story on LRC this morning which talks about Rothbard’s split from Cato. So if you are to believe Rothbard in the story and keeping in mind that Koch and Crane are still the head honchos at Cato, do you follow and/or trust their motives of spreading libertarianism or is it just a front to keep statism around to give breaks to major corporate interests?
With Reason, I don’t know that it’s as tied into Koch as Cato, but I believe David Koch is on the board of trustees of the Reason Foundation.
I don’t know much about the funding, but I don’t have any doubts that Nick Gillespie at Reason and David Boaz at Cato are certainly true libertarians. They may not go as far as some anarcho-capitalists and others might like, but they’re definitely not closet statists.
It’s interesting, I was reminded of my own journey into libertarianism when I came across this recent thread. I actually discovered Cato and Reason before the LvMI. And even then, it took me quite some time to get deep enough to unearth the in-fighting among these major libertarian forces. It was quite sad and disheartening to see, as I’m sure we’ll get at least a few illustrations of it here. In some respects there is some animosity (mostly between a few select individuals associated with Cato and individuals associated with LvMI), and that tends to lead people into making blanket statements about entire organizations and those who affiliate with them. I actually don’t recall ever hearing or seeing Reason being brought into it, but I have certainly seen a couple of things published on the website that I couldn’t believe got written at all, let alone okay-ed by the powers that be. (e.g. this one, which, if you read even a fraction of the comments, you’ll notice was not well-received at all. And it gets even worse when you get to the asshole author’s asshole response to the comments he was getting. That actually got me to write in and share my disgust with the powers that be at the foundation.)
But to get to your question, no, by and large I do not believe Cato or Reason are faux libertarian fronts for statist corporate interests. I don’t know much about the character of the Kochs, but I’ve seen enough from both of those organizations to assess that their fight is genuine. And while, as I said, some may not find it libertarian enough, I still find it to be geniune liberatarian.
Boaz is an ‘anarchist,’ I believe. As is Tom Palmer and a few others at Cato.
I think both organizations put out great and important work. Ron Paul is also paid by an institution of questionable libertarian merit and ‘purity,’ but that doesn’t stop me from liking what he does.
I think they have a bad rep because they take and give money into the political system. Which makes them a source of controversy and makes libertarianism seem like a rich white hypocrite’s game. I can understand why people are now citing them by name in regards to this tea party crap.
I for one am getting pretty annoyed at tea party stuff. (though my first impression was only that it was a benign and nonsensical mob movement). And the whole PR campaign of using words like ‘freedom works’ and ‘liberty prosperity and property!’ from neocons. Who are both coopting these things to get in office, and making them at the same time seem vulgar and/or meaningless. By putting them on bumper stickers and baiting liberals who can easily outgun them in debate when they have to flesh out the details of their thinking. What has happened is that criticism of government is being mixed with neocon bigotry and thirst for blood. Whether this is Catos fault, I don’t know. But they are definitely fueling fires which could destroy any criticism of government for decades to come.
Nowadays if you say you got some fact or article from Cato, whoever recieves it will ignore it or write it off as hacky conflict of interest. I remember in college someone was giving a presentation on the situation in Somalia. They cited a statistic from Cato favoring whatever thing was going on in Somalia. But had to clarify it afterwards by saying “but this is from Cato Institute. A site that hates the government and whose billionaire owners continually lobby in the beltway to privatize everything.”
I’m a big fan of both Reason and Cato. I consider Reason to be typically witty, informative, and a good source of “the libertarian take” on current events. Likewise, I have nothing but praise for Cato and its more academic work. I have no idea how you believe “Tea Partyishness” is present in either.
Reason and Cato employ some good people who put out good information. Sometimes they suggest pseudo-libertarian “efficiency” type stuff, but that’s usually as a “first step” to a better, more libertarian program. They’re not perfect, but I wouldn’t eschew them either.
I like them too and they were especially helpful for me in researching the libertarian position on regulation, because I never understood how the free market coul “fail” although it appeared from a layman’s perspective that it has failed in the past. But Cato and Reason would talk about things no one would talk about. The criticism that Cato is some billionaire conspiracy is bullshit. ALL news sources are run by billionaires and corporations and Cato yields very little power. Cato consistently releases very good analysis of how ineffectual government spending is and how easily it could be done away with.
As for the Tea Party, most articles related to the Tea Party are from apologetics who praise its anti-government elements but have serious concerns that it distorts the message of liberty for special interests, and that Tea-Partiers (in their present post-libertarian form) haven’t a clue what they’re concerned about.
I attended Cato University back in 2010. Boaz, Palmer, and such were incredibly nice. I regret not having tried to spoken to Higgs when he was there. I understand that there is some personal feud between Cato and the LvMI, but most of the Cato people are really rather nice.
Although I would add the disclaimer that they sure have plenty of tea party folk in their gatherings. I remember during one of the dinners I sat down next to a neocon couple that kept trying to convince me that we needed to invade Iran. As a rule of thumb the younger you were the more radical your ideology was. Overall all very nice people.
It all depends on the writer. There some definite libertarian-lites there, basically just fiscal conservatves, and there are some true anarchists as well. As an earlier poster noted, Radley Balko and Brian Doherty are both pretty good. but there are also definitely some writers that have to be filtered out.
I think they are both good to have around, as an entry point for new libertarians. It was actually some links at reason that got me reading rothbard and checking out LRC, which led me to mises.org.
I agree. Higgs was really the great surprise for me. I’m amazed I hadn’t noticed he was there till he came up to present. Out of curiosity, was he harassed when he presented during your year? I recall during his second lecture’s question period he got thrown a few unkind words after suggesting that the USA hadn’t fought a legitimate war since after the Revolutionary War, "and he wasn’t sure on the legitimacy of that…"
“I’m a big fan of both Reason and Cato. I consider Reason to be typically witty, informative, and a good source of “the libertarian take” on current events. Likewise, I have nothing but praise for Cato and its more academic work. I have no idea how you believe “Tea Partyishness” is present in either.”
Cato University attracts a lot of wealthy donors; some of which probably couldn’t be qualified to be full pledged, informed, philosophical-historical-political-economical well read-libertarians. Hence; those questions arise.
It’s nothing to worry about; I have had some similar experiences at the FEE or even at Mises University - but on different topics.
I like a lot of work that Cato produces; but I don’t like the entire staff. Pison, for example, totally blew it for me. And they have some ‘we need a strong military for American interests’ kind a guys too, which saddens me. But they also have anarchists, usually relatively radical interns and stuff like that. It’s a coin with a good and a bad side.
My style, my field of interest and stuff like that is more drawn to the Mises Institute, though. A part, maybe, from being (relatively) ‘big tent’.
Ow; what about Independent Institute and Mercatus?