06 March 2012

Cato Institute

As you may know, and certainly if you read much in the social/economic/political press, the Cato Institute is a libertarian think-tank in Washington DC that regularly publishes articles explaining how law-of-the-jungle capitalism is the central and essential tenet of American society. They claim to be neither left nor right on the political scale, but rather in favor of freedom/liberty in all political areas of the social/economic spectrum.

Those of us on the left have been wondering for a long time: if you're really libertarian as you say, why are your positions and papers quoted almost exclusively by the right? Why does it seems that you produce ten or twenty or fifty papers on economic freedom (a politically right position) for every one on personal freedom (a lefty position)?

The Cato Institute is being taken over by the Koch Brothers, who makes no bones of about their right-wing views. While libertarians may be all a-twitter about how the institute's loss of independence is a terrible development, here is a good article on why it means pretty much nothing to the rest of us.

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