Has the Cato Institute been Captured? Is cato.org still a libertarian organization? “Capture” happens in the private sector, too

By N.S.

“The concept of Regulatory Capture (Reg Capture) typically refers to a phenomenon that occurs when a regulatory agency that is created to act in the public interest, instead advances the commercial or political concerns of special interest groups that dominate an industry or sector the agency is charged with regulating.”

[“Regulatory Capture,” CFA Institute, 30 June 2016.]

“Capture,” as in “regulatory capture,” has for generations been a pervasive problem in the public sphere. However, over the past generation or more, it has spread to the private sphere, as well, both businesses and non-profits. In the business world, a company will express its “tolerance” for certain groups (e.g., blacks or, in Disney’s case, homosexuals), will favor said group’s members in hiring and benefits, and those groups will then engage in a hostile takeover. In the non-profit world, one type of capture will occur when a funding group or rich individual will buy influence in an organization whose goals are at odds with those of the funder. For a notorious example, beginning circa in the 1990s, open borders fanatic billionaire investor David Gelbaum (1950-2018) secretly made over $100 million in gifts to the Sierra Fund, on the condition that Sierra end its support for limiting immigration. Never mind that rising population is the greatest enemy of the environment.

“David Gelbaum, who gave the Sierra Club over $100 million, told Carl Pope in 1994 or 1995 that if the Sierra Club ever came out anti-immigration, they would never get another dollar from him. So in 1996 the Sierra Club changed its policy on population and immigration stating that it would no longer take a position on the subject. The club became a special interest of the left at that point.”

[“Immigration should be focus of Sierra Club,”, by Don Stewart, Gold Country Media, March 17, 2005.]

David Gelbaum

“The enormous contribution came with strings attached, namely the stipulation that America’s flagship green organization would not mention excessive immigration as harmful to the environment generally and resource preservation in particular.

“As a result, the Club management rejected its own environmentally proper immigration policy with no explanation. The cause was a closely guarded secret for years.

“In 1989 the Club’s official position was: ‘Immigration to the U.S. should be no greater than that which will permit achievement of population stabilization in the U.S.’ The aim was to create an environmentally sustainable America, where human population growth would not outstrip natural processes that renew water, soil, forests, and other resources vital to human existence.

“So it was both mysterious and alarming to concerned Club members when in 1996 the Board of Directors voted to adopt a ‘neutrality’ policy regarding immigration:

‘The Sierra Club, its entities, and those speaking in its name will take no position on immigration levels or on policies governing immigration into the United States. The Club remains committed to environmental rights and protections for all within our borders, without discrimination based on immigration status.

[“How Deeply Did Wall Street Investor David Gelbaum Damage the Sierra Club?,” by Brenda Walker, The Social Contract Press, Volume 24, Number 4 (Summer 2014).]

Somebody needed to “correct” David Gelbaum back in the 1990s, but it’s too late now.

Prior to the Gelbaum Putsch, the environmental movement in America was dominated by people like John Tanton (1934-2019), Dick Lamm (1935-2021), and Garrett Hardin (1915-2003), who were part of the Zero Population Growth (ZPG) movement, and who believed in “carrying capacity,” which they believed America had reached. (“The number of people, other living organisms, or crops that a region can support without environmental degradation.”

https://nicholasstixuncensored.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-lifeboat-is-full-population.html

For a more recent example of private sector capture, the Cato Institute has sold itself to George Soros’ organizations for much less than Sierra sold itself for, more on the level of a congressman. Note that although Soros calls at least two of his totalitarian funding organizations “open society” this or that, variations on the title of philosopher Karl Popper’s (1902-1994) classic, two-volume, anti-totalitarian work, The Open Society and Its Enemies, George Soros is a totalitarian Marxist.

Much of this writer’s work on politics aims to expose deceptions.

“Treason Lobby’s Cato Institute Hiding Leftist Donations”
By Emma Goldman
July 22, 2022
VDARE

“The Cato Institute, Washington D.C.’s libertarian think tank, has long had a fraught relationship with VDARE (see here, here, here, and here)—although, let the record show, it did host an event for Editor Peter Brimelow’s 2003 book The Worm in the Apple. [Watch it here or here.]

“Which, however, Cato honcho David Boaz (see below) ostentatiously skipped. Still, Cato has become one of the largest think tanks in the world and is credited with bringing libertarianism into the political mainstream [Cato Institute - InfluenceWatch]. Recently, however, Cato has become increasingly indistinguishable from the other Leftist organizations in D.C. This could be because Cato has been quietly—perhaps even secretly—taking money from George Soros.

“Since 2004, Cato has been uploading versions of its annual report to its website, presumably in the interest of transparency. Since 2014, however, Cato has not been uploading a page in its annual report that appears in the print version: the page dedicated to the organization’s institutional support. The institutional support page includes the names of big organizations, and big corporations, that have given money to Cato in the past year.

“The institutional support page is missing from the 2021 online version of Cato’s annual report (it should be on the missing page 58). It is also conspicuously missing from the 2020 (page 46), 2019 (page 42), 2018 (page 42), 2017 (page 46), 2016 (page 42), 2015 (page 42), and 2014 (page 44) reports. It’s unclear why the institutional support page has gone missing since 2014, though that is the last year The Center for Media and Democracy’s Sourcewatch focused on it when discussing the group’s institutional supporters at the time. The Sourcewatch reference now leads to a 404 page.

Back in early June, my longtime, VDARE Editor-Publisher Peter Brimelow contacted me. A writer was working on a report on the huge, rich, libertarian organization cato.org. cato started getting money from George Soros’ open society foundation several years ago, at which point it began pursuing affirmative action policies. However, a year or two ago, cato started dropping the page listing Soros’ open society foundation from the online version of its slick brochure.

Whenever Peter needs a telephone reporter, he turns to me. First, I sent emails requesting the hard copy of the cato brochure. When that got me nowhere, I worked the phones, leaving messages, which the recipients also ignored. (I identified myself as “Nicholas Stix, crime and courts reporter for VDARE.” I’ve gotten fed up with using different names, voices, and even forging my own signature, though I will never say “never again.”)

Eventually, I found a different telephone number, got a human being to answer the phone, and got said human being to send me the beautiful, hard copy cato brochure, from which I faxed the missing pages to Emma Goldman and Peter Brimelow.

I had nothing to do with the writing or editing of the VDARE report, and yet the information I provided was essential to it.