So people with money finance research people are doing that advances things they care about, like...
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The Kochs' efforts on criminal justice reform?
This is the Soros conspiracy theory for lefties.
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The Kochs' efforts on criminal justice reform?
This is the Soros conspiracy theory for lefties.
Also, I'm not saying everything Koch's touch is all wrong, but you can usually trace it back to self-interest whether directly or as cover.
They do a lot of focus grouping to get from, for instance: "taxes are wrong" --> "don't build expensive public transit" --> "make a ballot prop to widen highways at the expense of public transit", and the latter actually happened, per NY Times article below:
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/climate/koch-brothers-pub...
Believe we're wrong if you want, but accusing us of bad faith just because you can find some way something might conceivably benefit us is lazy.
I have my disagreements with the Kochtopus, but everyone I know even at the highest levels of those organizations is fiercely ideologically motivated, and the people I know who know the Kochs say that absolutely extends to them (and I haven't seen things that seem to contradict it).
Just because deregulation doesn't give you a leg up against competitors within your industry doesn't suddenly remove self-interest as a motive. Price collusion doesn't help you vis-a-vis your competitors either but it's certainly done in self-interest.
If everybody in the economy makes 10% more in nominal terms but output remains the same, nobody is better off in real terms. The industry being deregulated is just a subset of the economy though! If getting rid of a regulation makes participants in an industry which is only 2% of the economy do 10% better in nominal terms while output remains unchanged, those participants are coming out ahead in real terms by capturing a bigger piece of the economic pie.
One need resort to neither altruism nor high minded ideals to explain such an action, self-interest still suffices.
I think the Koch Brothers themselves actually do believe what they say, but it's also hard to not conflate:
(1) The government shouldn't impose such strict regulations on business.
(2) I benefit if the government doesn't impose such strict regulations on my business.
Further, you can see how their childhood led to their libertarian / no-holds-barred pathology because of their absent father who encouraged them to fight-it-out in all disputes and their strict (literally Nazi) governess - leading to them sueing each other and anyone else who gets in the way of their "freedom". It's a shame.
Usually, political leaders are selected among those who truly believe and have fewer personal benefit (by those who believe less but benefit more), but that's not always the case, and ultimately that doesn't matter. What story we tell ourselves (how genuinely we believe) is not very relevant at the end of the day, for we do not make a living in the world of stories (but for martyrs).
So one must be very cautious, when reasoning about society (or anything really), each time ones line of arguments crosses ones self interest. How much genuinely we believe in what we benefit from is no better an argument than how much strongly an addict feel he needs his fix.
Good you mentioned that one. The goal is to push through on mens rea for company executives, for the top brass to go to prison you actually have to prove intent of malfeasance. "Should know" would not be enough to lock someone away.
Currently playing in a theater near you: the 737-MAX drama.