The Think-Tank Conspiracy

Wee Georgie Monbiot is desperate to find a Koch-sized “conspiracy” in Britain. Apparently:

[F]ree-market thinktanks are nothing of the kind. They are public relations agencies, secretly lobbying for the corporations and multimillionaires who finance them. If they wish to refute this claim, they should disclose their funding. Until then, whenever you hear the term free-market thinktank, think of a tank, crushing democracy, driven by big business.

So, no hyperbole there. As it happens, I think it’s a good idea for think tanks to disclose their funding. At the same time it’s perfectly reasonable for private entities to ask that their donations be a private matter and that you have to be a Class A loon* to think that sending the Adam Smith Institute (fine people!) a cheque is tantamount to “crushing democracy”.

Typically, Monbiot buries the lede in his own piece:

The progressives were more accountable. Among them, Demos did least well. It sent me a list of its sponsors, but refused to reveal how much they gave. It scores 2.5. The Institute for Public Policy Research listed its donors and, after some stumbling, was able to identify the biggest of them: the European Union (a grant of €800,000) and the Esme Fairburn Foundation (£86k). It scores 3.5. The New Economics Foundation sent me a list of all its donors and the amount each gave over the past year, earning 4 points. The biggest funders are the Network for Social Change (£173k), the Department of Health (£124k) and the Aim Foundation (£100k). Compass had already published a full list in its annual report. The biggest source is the Communication Workers’ Union, which gave it £78k in 2009. Compass gets 5 out of 5.

See that? Doubtless there are good reasons explaining why the EU is handing the IPPR the best part of a million euros; doubtless the Department of Health also has good reasons for punting a chunk of change to the New Economics Foundation. Good luck to both organisations. So, yes, it’s interesting to have a list of these donors but if it’s transparency you seek then asking why public bodies fund think tanks and pressure groups (such as ASH) seems a more useful place to start than dreaming up some right-wing conspiracy fronted by Madsen Pirie or the late, lamented, Lord Harris.

Again, however, note how cheap British think-tanks are, especially when compared to their American counterparts.

Monbiot, incidentally, returned form a recent trip to the Isle of Jura complaining that the island is a “desperate wasteland” which, again, demonstrates that the man’s an excitable nincompoop.

*Not used in the Aberdeenshire sense.