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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   28633 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024

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Ideological Institutions

The other day I was explaining my understanding of think tanks to a younger friend. They had a reaction of "no way!? Is that really how they work". This is the most common reaction, followed by "yeah of course that's how they work, why are you telling me this like I'm stupid?"

The purpose of ideological Institutions is two-fold:

  1. To be a standing army of sorts for a particular ideology. That way anytime a new issue comes up in political discourse there is a ready and willing group of people willing to advocate for the ideology. I'd sum this up as "political coordination".
  2. To extract funds and resources from wealthy people of a particular ideology. I'd sum this up as "a tax on political beliefs".

These may sound like they are at cross purposes, but they are not. A successful think tank does both very well.

Some of you here might have the immediate complaint somewhat along the lines:

Universities can also be ideological Institutions but they don't have their people paying a tax on their beliefs. But this isn't true on two dimensions:

  1. Tuition costs for parents and students. Some of the most clearly ideological small liberal arts colleges are private and very expensive.
  2. Ideologically captured departments within universities also impose a cost on their graduates: 4 years of their life and a useless degree.

I think the existence of these ideological Institutions has had an overall negative effect on American politics. Similar to news organizations they benefit from ongoing political conflict.

But they are also a necessary set of institutions for balancing out democracy. They act as a way for people who care and hold strong beliefs to feel like they have more of an impact on politics than their single vote would normally allow.

I was recently thinking that many university departments are essentially left-wing think tanks. They have explicitly activist aims, produce low-quality research with conclusions that are at least directionally predetermined, and only hire people with certain ideologies. The main difference is that they're funded, or at least subsidized, by taxpayers.

Am I wrong in thinking that many think tanks, especially foreign policy ones, are also taxpayer-funded? I guess the Institute for the Study of War only lists a bunch of retired Pentagon folks as directors and donations from defense contractors (so maybe only slightly indirectly?). RAND and MITRE get some combination of public and private funds. Some of those aren't exactly known for being leftist peaceniks.

I'm not sure. I was thinking of the more ideological think tanks, like Heritage and the EPI.

Apparently Rand does get government funding, though I'm not sure whether it's contracting for specific research or open-ended grants.

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