Fisher antony sir ATLAS

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MERRI OK

SEE ATLAS CTT NETWORK

THATCHER

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VON MISES INST SAYS AUSTR DEad till koch? jUmpstart?

see IEA

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GGL 6 26

AI Overview

British entrepreneur Sir Antony Fisher founded the Atlas Network (originally the Atlas Economic Research Foundation) in 1981 to build a global network of free-market think tanks. He was directly inspired by, and acted upon the advice of, Austrian School economist F. A. Hayek. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

The Hayek Connection

In 1945, a post-WWII Fisher met with Hayek at the London School of Economics, seeking advice on how to stop the march of socialism. Fisher wanted to run for political office, but Hayek advised against it. Instead, Hayek urged him to focus on the "second hand dealers in ideas"—influencing the intellectual class, journalists, and academics by providing scholarly, objective research on market economics. [1, 2, 3, 4]

The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA)

Following Hayek's blueprint, Fisher successfully founded the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) in London in 1955. The IEA laid the foundational classical liberal and free-market policies that eventually influenced Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's economic transformation of Britain in the 1980s. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Founding the Atlas Network

Seeing the massive success of the IEA, Fisher moved to the United States and established the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in 1981. His goal was to replicate the think-tank model globally to champion Austrian and classical liberal economic principles. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Austrian Economics

Hayek, alongside Ludwig von Mises, is one of the most prominent figures of the Austrian School of Economics. This economic school of thought emphasizes: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Individual Liberty & Free Markets: A deep skepticism of government intervention, price controls, and central planning. [1]

The Business Cycle: The theory that artificial government expansion of the money supply leads to unsustainable booms and inevitable busts (Austrian Business Cycle Theory). [1, 2]

Price Mechanisms: The idea that free-market prices effectively communicate knowledge and allocate resources spontaneously, making central planning highly inefficient. [1, 2]

While Hayek and Mises differed slightly on some academic details, Fisher utilized their overarching theories of market supremacy to fuel his global activism and think tank expansions. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

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Jeremy-Walker-CCS-27-Sept-2023

Silencing the voice of Indigenous Australia: The fossil-funded Atlas Network and the Vote No disinformation campaign against the referendum on constitutional recognition Jeremy Walker Climate, Society & Environment Research Centre (C-SERC), University of Technology Sydney, Australia https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0789-3457

Abstract: On the 14th of October 2023, Australians will vote in a referendum on a minimalist constitutional amendment to finally recognise the First Nations of Australia in its 1901 Constitution and to establish an Indigenous Voice to Parliament. A year ago, polls suggested the referendum proposal of the Uluru Statement enjoyed over 60% support. Since the Vote No campaign was launched, polling suggests the Yes vote has declined to around 40%. This article argues that the Vote No operation is being organised on behalf of self-interested fossil fuel corporations and their allies, whose efforts to mislead the public on life-and-death matters reach back more than half a century. They don’t want Indigenous Australians to gain this long overdue constitutional recognition because they believe it will contribute to reining in the polluting industries that are driving us toward climate and ecological collapse.

Led by pop-up campaign unit Advance Australia, the No campaign is coordinated across the the Australian branch of the little-known, highly influential global infrastructure of the Atlas Network of ‘free-market thinktanks’– which includes the Centre for Independent Studies, the Institute of Public Affairs and Liberty Works.

Based on publicly available evidence, I examine the role of oil companies and key actors in this highly integrated network of organisations, demonstrating that the No campaign shares the same aims and methods as the longstanding disinformation campaign against climate policy operated by the Atlas Network: to immunise transnational business profits from democratic parliaments.

...

Not itself a think-tank, Atlas is ‘the mother of all thinktanks’, an umbrella organisation co-ordinating 515 ‘public policy research institutes’ in 99 countries (Atlas Network 2020a). Organisations and social networks are, of course, composed of individuals. The specific public individuals, activists and responsible officers of the Atlas-linked organisations discussed in this article are mentioned by way of example, in service of my aim to contribute to academic and public-interest knowledge. The factual evidence I rely upon to analyse the Australian outposts of the Atlas Network are the public actions and public statements of Atlas-affiliated actors as

...

reported in the public media, and as published on the public websites of Atlas-linked ‘thinktanks’ alongside the public profiles of their executive staff and board members. Registered in Delaware in 1981 as the Atlas Economic Research Foundation by the English businessman Antony Fisher (and later renamed), the Atlas Network aims to “litter the world with free-market think-tanks” modelled on Fisher’s prototype neoliberal thinktank founded in 1955, the London-based Institute of Economic Affairs (Blundell 2001; Salles-Djelic, 2017). The better-known Atlas thinktanks in the Anglophone world include the Fraser Institute, the Heritage Foundati...

rprise Institute. The Atlas Network’s ever-growing roster of think-tanks have foundational histories of oil-derived core funding among wider corporate support, including from ExxonMobil and other oil majors, from of the oil-refining billionaires Charles and David Koch’s ‘philanthropic’ foundations, and those of Richard Mellon Scaife, heir to the family banking, Alcoa and Gulf Oil/Chevron fortune. Thanks to US financial transparency laws, the tax deductible ‘non-profit’ Atlas think-tanks comprising the American branch of the Network have partially documented financial histories (Rothmyer 1981; Brulle 2014; ExxonSecrets. 2014; Chafuen 2021a).1 It is less than coincidental to our understanding of the present motives of the No campaign that the Australian Atlas organisations have long worked in concert with their US-based counterparts to mislead and confuse the public regarding the long-established scientific confirmation of global warming, and to oppose government policies to phase out fossil-fuel extraction and combustion, such as carbon taxation, government support for renewable energy, and an effective UN climate treaty (Wilkinson 2020).

In 1988, the IPCC was formed, the global public was alerted by scientists and news media that global warming had begun, and Exxon executives were internally notified that the public position of Exxon and the American Petroleum Institute (API) would be to “emphasize the uncertainty in scientific conclusions regarding the potential enhanced greenhouse effect” (Climate Files, 2023a). Since 1988, the Atlas Network has continuously expanded its funding base and multiplied across borders into its present global constellation of 500+ thinktanks. A core aim of this expansion was to enhance oil industry efforts to undermine support for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC, est. 1992) and to defeat its original mission: the negotiation of binding, equitable, quantified, timetabled, legislated, science-based national CO2 reduction targets (Walker & Johnson 2018).

There is ample historical and circumstantial evidence suggesting that the anti-Voice campaign supports objectives closely aligned with the Atlas Network’s permanent anti-climate policy campaign, and is being conducted through proxies in the interests of of the extractive business interests that have opposed First Nations’ pleas for self-determination, recognition and land justice in the past. Whilst it is true that major corporations operating in Australia (such as BHP and Rio Tinto) have recently moved to divest their fossil fuel divisions and have publicly announced their support for the Voice, the statements of petroleum companies Woodside, Santos and the oil and gas lobby APPEA (now Energy Australia) on the Voice are unequivocal at best, reflecting fossil industry concern that the numerous legal challenges mounted by Indigenous communities against new fossil fuel projects could be further strengthened by the influence an Indigenous advisory body might have on the implementation of federal laws at the executive level (SBS 2023; McKilroy & Macdonald-Smith 2023).2 Since limited disclosure law

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How a ‘Pro-Climate’ Charity Channelled Cash to a Koch-Funded Think Tank - DeSmog

Friedrich von Hayek, the architect of a Thatcherism defined by its the privatisation, tax breaks and strike breaking, would be officially recognised in December 1984. He had already received the Nobel Prize for Economics—but this was the real highlight.

Hayek was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour by the Queen, on the prime minister’s recommendation, for “services to the study of economics”.

The audience with the Queen was followed by a jubilant dinner with family and friends at the Institute of Economic Affairs. “I’ve just had the happiest day of my life,” Hayek said.

Margaret Thatcher in turn thanked Fisher, Harris, and her sponsors at the IEA during its 30th anniversary dinner at Grosvenor House in April 1987.

Fisher flew over from the United States for the auspicious occasion. He was at this point 72 years old, and finally considering retirement.

He had recently hired John Blundell, a childhood admirer of the IEA and a friend of Thatcher’s, to take over as president of his US-based Atlas Economic Research Foundation.

Effective fundraiser

Blundell was then head of the Institute of Humane Studies, with a reputation as “a highly effective manager and fundraiser”.

Fisher had a lot to celebrate. Thirty years ago his ideas were at the very margins of respectability, and the free market seemed like an economist’s shameful fantasy.

Yet, during the previous year alone, the government had implemented the “Big Bang”, with regulations for the savings and investment industry torn asunder. Then, in December 1986, British Gas was sold off in its entirety for £5.6 billion.

The anniversary dinner was held. Lord Blake told the dinner guests: “No single body has contributed more than the IEA to the long overdue destruction of étatisme and to the recovery of Britain.”

Finally, it was Thatcher’s turn to speak. “Anyone who dared to challenge the conventional wisdom of the post-war consensus was derided, pilloried, criticised, frowned upon, and looked down upon as being either reactionary, pitiful, or ignorant,” she said.

“The IEA dared to challenge that. You did not say, as so many others did so, ‘what can a few people do among so many’.”

“You set out to challenge, to change public sentiment… once you, with your courage, gave expression to other views, others followed… what we have achieved could never have been done without the leadership of the Institute of Economic Affairs.”

John Blundell was in the United States at the time, but soon got hold of the gossip from the night. “I heard she was infuriated at how long the 10 men ahead of her spoke,” he told the author.

Bleeding heart

“She tried to convince Fisher that evening to allow the Tory party to take over the IEA, and he was appalled at the idea, and said ‘no way!’” Lawson, it appears, did not attend.

He was, at that time, working on a project to tie aide to developing countries to Thatcherite economic reforms. As he himself said, “I was not known, for good reason, as a bleeding heart.”

Harris, the indefatigable fundraiser, made good use of Thatcher’s kind words. He wrote to British American Tobacco, British Petroleum, and Esso (later to become part of ExxonMobil), asking for an increase in contributions.

“If you had been at the anniversary dinner and heard the PM say ‘what has been achieved would never have been done without the leadership of the IEA, you would agree we should do all we can to strengthen its work in the decisive years ahead,” he wrote in a note to Patrick Sheehy, the non-smoking BAT chairman.

“You have been among our strongest supporters over the years, and are already entitled to share the tributes paid to our success. I question whether I dare address a further appeal to you for the fund of £600,000, to acquire the freehold of 2 Lord North Street or an alternative permanent address. Before going public, I’d like to collect pledges for at least £200,000 from a dozen or so special friends.”

Internal documents released after legal action show that BAT agreed to pay £10,000 to the appeal. “We didn’t get anything out of it except we got some ideas, and we talked about free enterprise and the market economy and things like that.”

Capitalist environment

“They got a lot of support from us,” Sheehy told the author. “The benefit to shareholders is that, in a capitalist company, you would want a capitalist environment to thrive… The less regulation the better. Although there’s obviously got to be some, but it’s got to be a minimum.”

British Petroleum, then 31 per cent owned by the state, agreed to donate £20,000 on top of its annual subscription of £10,000 a year. Esso paid considerably more, according to Clive Wright, who was the director of corporate affairs at the time.

The chairman, Norman Foster, attended Malborough Grammar with Harris, and the two were lifelong friends. “When I was there, we were big supporters of Hayek. We gave them a major donation when they wanted to buy the premises at Lord North Street,” Wright recalled.

“I met Ralph quite a lot at a lunch couple of times in the House of Lords. Very interesting man, very lively and in depth, very much a free thinker. The last thing I want to give you is an impression of anything improper.”

He went on to add: “We had a very strict policy that we did not get involved politically… of course we are free market company, so naturally we believe in the free market. Yes, we didn’t like state control, particularly in something as sensitive as oil.”

The IEA, at the height of its influence and long before climate change was an issue, was bankrolled by Big Oil and Big Tobacco as both industries fought regulation and taxation.

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from CTT2 ggl

Sir Anthony Fisher (RAF, despite his faith in free market, never made it work, including a turtle farm) is sort of the international Johnny Appleseed of thinktanks, pal of Hayek who founded the Mont Pelerin Society in 1947, libertarian so ties to Koch/Cato, booster of free marketeer Friedman, allied also with FREE which pioneered the dude ranch junket for judge indoctrination (180 on _). late to denialism, but a member, Maurice Newman, the man hand-picked by Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to be the government’s top business advisor” has been peddling the idea of AGW as new religion (note mirroring) in Australia (which junked its progressive carbon tax, and prepared but narrowly averted finishing off the Great Barrier Reef by dumping toxic coal ash on it).

After Fischer founded Institute for Economic Affairs, he went to US and then commonwealth (Acton was part of Atlas, which spawned CTT all over the world). These inhabited different ideological as well as geographical niches in the “ecosystem.” For example, Acton (est 1990) combined free market faith with Christian faith (separation of institution and state), conflates free choice of goods with free will, in fact our only (social?) duty is to buy and sell. It is pro-SUV ("Protesting car dealerships for selling vehicles that improve people's lives does nothing toward showing the way to transcendental truth. It is a temptation from which, I pray, the Lord will soon deliver his people."), anti-Kyoto ("Religious leaders are right to remain skeptical of this effort to transform unsound science and policy into a moral crusade...Thus the market helps to see that the good environmental steward is properly rewarded for his efforts.")[Friedman meets Calvin], and even Christian Stewardism: ("A recent development that should be of some concern to Christians is the cozy relationship developing between radical environmental groups and Christian churches... Investing the anti-human environmental agenda with ecclesiastical authority is very dangerous, even when it is done unintentionally.") Olasky was a senior fellow, of whom Beck became an apostle, leading to revival in his books. Apparently Inhofe got notion of global cooling from them, which has become an undead zombie all-time hit on denialist repertoire. Perhaps because it is venerable, libertarian and presumably well funded (Bradley, Phillip Morris, David? Koch on board, literally and figuratively), it is well connected to the CTT's (Bandow at Cato, Heritage, Michael Novak, Heritage.

Atlas is also a Fisher creation, and operates as a kind of hub-clearinghouse, 2003 claims it works with"70 new think-tank entrepreneurs from 37 foreign countries and several states of the U.S.”, its network effect is enhanced by its affiliation with

State Policy Network, International Policy Network, and Institute for Economic Affairs

modest $4 million dollar budget in 2003 and a staff of eight

mojo:

“Founded in 1981 and named after Ayn Rand's free-market amorality tale, Atlas Shrugged [9], the Atlas Foundation has spent more than $20 million seeding some 200 libertarian think tanks across the globe as part of its Atlas Network. Much of its money has come from Phillip Morris; foundations tied to the Koch family, oil magnates who are leading funders of denier groups; and the Earhart Foundation, which was created from the profits of the now-defunct White Star Oil Company. Since 1998, ExxonMobil [5] and its foundations have given Atlas nearly $1 million. Between 2002 and 2008, the last year for which tax records are available, Atlas' budget more than tripled, nearly hitting $7 million, with the largest single portion going to grants for "think tanks in different regions of the world." [end “w/o borders]. Atlas has not been terribly effective in terms of climate denial, aside from Lomborg and Bryce, though has joined the inexplicable right wing fetish of attacking wind power (ALEC, Koch, Fox, Cato, Tea Party, North Carolina, BP, Paul Ryan, Gov. Scott Walker, “Reason Foundation,” techno-optimist Bryce, but Zuckerberg and Google?!).

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[Sir Antony Fisher (1915 - 1988) was one of the most influential background players in the global rise of libertarian think-tanks during the second half of the twentieth century, founding the Institute of Economic Affairs and the Atlas Economic Research Foundation. Through Atlas, he helped establish up to 150 other think-tanks worldwide. The most prominent include:

Fraser Institute

Manhattan Institute

Pacific Research Institute

National Center for Policy Analysis

Centre for Independent Studies

Adam Smith Institute...

Fisher was a prolific founder of free-market institutions. Another of these is the International Policy Network. Its mission is clearly propagandising:

IPN pursues its mission of informing the public by sponsoring and co-ordinating conferences, workshops and seminars; working with experts to produce books, monographs and print articles and assisting with their syndication internationally; participating in key international conferences; engaging with broadcast media; partnering with individuals and think-tanks with similar missions, around the world; and supporting partners with websites and IT support, making small grants, giving advice and assisting with development of materials.

IPN also maintains a program to encourage dissemination of ideas based on the institutions of a free society specifically through print media throughout the world.

A cursory browse of its network will soon pick up on such topics as global warming denial and promoting the role of pharmaceutical companies in alleviating the ills of the poor.

It sponsors the $15,000 Bastiat Prize:

The prize was developed to encourage and reward writers whose published works eloquently and wittily elucidate the institutions of a free society: limited government, rule of law brokered by an independent judiciary, protection of private property, free markets, free speech, and sound science.

Alas! Not much room here for writers who are open minded! Only those who believe in TINA need apply.

Returning to earth, let's have a look at the Institute of Economic Affairs, another of Fisher's foundations:

The IEA is the UK's original free-market think-tank, founded in 1955. The IEA's goal is to explain free-market ideas to the public, including politicians, students, journalists, businessmen, academics and anyone interested in public policy.

The IEA has a massive listing of Links, most, but not all of which are institutions dedicated to promoting free-market policies. Its Trustees include some well-known institutional or academic free-marketeers, such as Linda Whetstone, Prof Patrick Minford, adviser to Margaret Thatcher, and Prof Martin Ricketts of Buckingham University. But its reach is also into industry and finance through Sir Peter Walters, ex chair of BP, the eponymous Malcolm McAlpine, Kevin Bell, ex-adviser to Margaret Thatcher and PR consultant and Michael Hintze, A City investor.

Taking an institution from the IEA's list of links, because we had heard of it before, we clicked and find ourselves looking at the Home Page of the (American) Heritage Foundation's site:

The Heritage Foundation is committed to building an America where freedom, opportunity, prosperity and civil society flourish.

This is another neo-liberal, free market institution.

It's listing of experts, who appear to be generally like-minded academics across the world, runs to more than 100. Its Patron is our very own Margaret Thatcher. The Heritage Foundation runs the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, following a donation from the Margaret Thatcher Institution.] also AEI

...

Taking an institution from the IEA's list of links, because we had heard of it before, we clicked and find ourselves looking at the Home Page of the (American) Heritage Foundation's site:

The Heritage Foundation is committed to building an America where freedom, opportunity, prosperity and civil society flourish.

This is another neo-liberal, free market institution.

It's listing of experts, who appear to be generally like-minded academics across the world, runs to more than 100. Its Patron is our very own Margaret Thatcher.

The Heritage Foundation runs the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, following a donation from theMargaret Thatcher Institution.

From its website, it appears to be internationally hyperactive in putting across a neo-liberal and conservative view of economic society. One of its activities is the production of an Index of Economic Freedom, which rates countries according to laissez faire principles such as labour freedom, freedom from government and freedom from taxation.

This is not the only free-market index - the Canadian Fraser Institute produces a grandly named Economic Freedom of the World Index.

Moving on, a branch trail led to the Young Briton's Foundation; patron Frederick Forsyth. The YBF has been accused of trying to infiltrate and control the Young Conservatives.

The YBF central creeds are conservative, pro free market and pro-American:

Our training programmes are based in part on the experience of the Republicans in the United States of America, and the role of think-tanks such as The Leadership Institute, Young America's Foundation, The Collegiate Network and The Heritage Foundation in helping to successfully reconnect the centre-right with the American electorate during the late Nineties. Their core aim has been to train conservative-inclined activists to ensure that they are ready to lead the next generation of politicians, with an articulate and modern centre-right alternative.

Another link is to the American Enterprise Institute:

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