Liggio, Leo IHS
Report}:
Austrian Economics Center
https://www.austriancenter.com › 2021/10 › Rep...](https://www.austriancenter.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Report-AEC-2015-english.pdf)
... Thiel as the next recipient of the Hayek Lifetime. Achievement Award. Presented by Meinhard Platzer (LGT) and Barbara Kolm (President of the Hayek Institute and.Read more
After the warm welcome of Prince Michael of Liechtenstein, Richard Zundritsch, Board Member of the Hayek Institut, delivered an inspiring speech introducing Peter Thiel
Since 2010 the Hayek Lifetime Achievement Award is presented to honor individuals for their outstanding contributions to freedom and economics in the tradition of the Austrian School. Former recipients are Mario Vargas Llosa, Niall Ferguson, Leonard Liggio, Dambisa Moyo und Deirdre McCloskey.
Billionaire Koch Industries CEO and Republican mega-donor Charles Koch has, since the 1970s, funded higher education, typically giving large donations to free-market economics programs at hundreds of U.S. colleges and universities.
Recently released tax documents (accessible as attachments below) reveal that these donations are ramping up. Two Koch family foundations and one Koch institute gave $33 million to higher education in 2015, the most ever in a single year for the nonprofits and nearly $10 million more than the previous record in 2014.
The Koch Structure of Social Change
Koch thinks funding higher education is the foundation for transforming society.
New Yorker reporter Jane Mayer found that Koch once urged his wealthy friends to focus on "attracting youth" because "this is the only group that is open to a radically different social philosophy." At a 1976 gathering organized by Koch, writes Mayer, libertarian historian Leonard Liggio, recommended the Nazi authoritarian tactic of creating a youth movement and building group identity. Liggio who went on to become president of the Koch-funded Institute for Humane Studies.
Decades ago, Charles Koch and his right-hand man, Richard Fink, devised a strategy called "The Structure of Social Change," which begins with funding higher education to educate young minds on the benefits of free-market capitalism. Professors and researchers he funds produce policy papers favoring his ideology—tax cuts, deregulation and small government—which Koch-funded think tanks such as the Cato Institute can package into easily digestible policy proposals. Koch-funded advocacy organizations such as his astroturf group "Americans for Prosperity" promote these initiatives to the American people and to legislative bodies. And a web of Koch candidates and policymakers help hasten social change by sponsoring legislation written by the Kochs' favorite corporate bill mill, the American Legislative Exchange Council.
The higher education donations, which come mostly from the Charles Koch Foundation, go towards founding free-market academic centers, professorships, post-doctoral and graduate fellowships, scholarships, course creation, lecture series usually featuring speakers who come from universities or think tanks funded by Koch, and student groups that read laissez-faire economics books and even books authored by Koch himself.
Two other Koch institutions pitch in as well. The Fred and Mary Koch Foundation, directed by the Koch brothers, Charles Koch's wife and Fink, contributes to schools in Kansas, the Kochs' birthplace and home to the Koch Industries headquarters. The Charles Koch Institute, also a nonprofit, also donated to two universities in 2015.
From the indoctrination of young minds, Koch foundations harness what they call a "talent pipeline," funneling students into the Koch "social change" infrastructure, often as professors, think-tank fellows or political operatives. Over decades, the ranks of Koch-funded professors, as well as Koch think-tank and political recruits, have grown significantly.
According to Charles Koch Foundation vice president for higher education Ryan Stowers, the Koch's had a [VID] network of
"scholars" in 2014. The foundation now funds at least 53 free-market academic centers, run by many of these scholars, on college and university campuses around the country
According to this reporter's calculations, the Koch foundations doled out almost $142 million to nearly 400 U.S. colleges and universities from 2005 to 2015.
And the Kochs are paying attention to what their money is buying.
"The Koch Foundation's academic control extends all the way down to approval over graduate fellowship recipients and the content of their dissertation topics, which bodes well for Kochs' 'talent pipeline' but poorly for the integrity of any institution hosting these programs," said Ralph Wilson, co-founder and senior researcher with UnKoch My Campus, an activist group of students and researchers who uncover the details of Koch donations. The group views the donations as obstructing academic freedom and pushing an extreme, rightwing agenda, including climate change denial, into the academic mainstream at hundreds of colleges and universities.