Mirror Image: Conservative and Liberal Philanthropy

Public Good Project

September 4, 2014

by Jay Taber

While Walter Karp wrote Indispensable Enemies about the charade of Democrat vs Republican parties, the framework could easily accommodate conservative and liberal wings of corporate philanthropy.

While their prejudices differ, their agendas are boilerplate copies. Everyone focuses on the Tea Party and Green Party fringe as proof of a significant difference, but they only have marginal influence on the core mutual agenda of privatization.

In 2004, when Obama was anointed by Goldman Sachs to be the rising star on fast-track to the White House, Obama made a public speech to reassure Wall Street, in which he stated that his ideological mentor was Ronald Reagan.

Harper’s magazine did an expose on Obama that documented his total sell-out, four years before he ran for president. It was totally ignored by liberals, but duly noted by us.

Interlocking directorates of the reactionary capitalist elite is something that used to be discussed by social change activists. This type of analysis — applied to the Far Right (i.e. Koch brothers, et al) today — has been touted by neoliberal apologists as shocking proof of an anti-democratic network. It is, of course, ironic, that by holding a mirror to the interlocking directorates of neoliberals, we get a substantially identical image.