Robert Wenzel writes:
[I’ve been] reading Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, which is pretty much a book length ad hominem attack on anyone who doesn’t fall in line with prevailing coercive demands against smokers and against those scientists who do not subscribe to the view that global warning is going to soon destroy the planet.
I found most interesting this quote on page 248 of the paperback edition:
Phillip Morris’s point of view, of course, was that people should not be discouraged from smoking, but they made common cause with various groups and individuals committed to “free market political and economic principles.”
Perhaps this is why among the scores of think tanks and organizations that Phillip Morris supported, we find, the seemingly obscure Ludwig von Mises Institue. Ludwig von Mises, an Austrian aristocrat, was, one of the founders of modern laissez faire economics.
I wasn’t aware of any funding of the Mises Institute by major corporations, so I asked Lew Rockwell, founder and chairman of the Institute, if Phillip Morris had funded Mises. The Fortune 500 don’t fund Mises, because of the Institute’s hardcore free market positions, and so Lew’s first response was, “We are too pro-cigarettes to get a donation from them.”
But, he had the donor base searched for me and found that Phillip Morris made one contribution to Mises, an employee matching fund contribution of $200 (and matching donations from Phillip Morris parent Altria of $1,200). This is what the global warming scare crowd considers “support” of the Institute.
I should add that Lew told me that the Institute would have no problem with accepting donations from Fortune 500 companies, but the companies just don’t contribute to Mises because of the Institute’s consistent free market stance.
The idea that powerful corporations have any interest in working with hard-core laissez faire groups like the Mises Institute has always been easily dismissed if one consults any of the facts of the matter at all. A perfect example of this is the United States Chamber of Commerce, which is anything but a principled advocate of free markets. The USCC consistently supports bailouts, regulations, and other forms of big government, including No Child Left Behind, TARP, and the auto industry bailouts. When Ron Paul was in congress, the Chamber repeatedly ranked him as one of the most “anti-business” members of Congress. Why? Because Paul opposed government spending. Business interest groups, on the other hand, love government spending as long as the money’s spent on them, or in a way that helps their bottom line. So, naturally, the Mises Institute isn’t cashing huge checks from Fortune 500 companies. Those companies would rather spend their money in DC, on their armies of lobbyists seeking bailouts and other favors care of the American taxpayer.
