Nice Publicity: WSJ Profiles Free-Market Economist, Fails to Note His Koch Brothers Tie

(MoneyWatch)  You don't have to share George Mason University economist's Peter Boettke's unbridled faith in the "free" market and suspicion of government to acknowledge that he's a distinguished academic. But readers of the WSJ's article this weekend about Boettke would've benefited by knowing of his affiliation with the Mercatus Center, an ultra-libertarian think-tank affiliated with the school that serves the interests of industrialists Charles and David Koch.

Before any "Ayn Randians" out there get in a lather, I'm not attacking libertarian ideas per se (although I don't agree with most of them) -- merely noting that it's a strange omission by the business paper of record.

Boettke is vice president for research at Arlington, Va.-based Mercatus, a not-for-profit organization billing itself as "the world's premier university source for market-oriented ideas." He's arguably the leading proponent of Friedrich von Hayek and the ideas developed more than a century ago by Austrian-school economists, who have waged intellectual combat for decades with disciples of John Maynard Keynes.

Interestingly, Boettke is also "BB&T Professor for the Study of Capitalism," the kind of endowed position that corporations routinely arrange these days as part of the campaign to win young hearts and minds. For instance, regional banking giant BB&T in 2005 gave $1 million to the U. of North Carolina Charlotte on condition that the school make Rand's "Atlas Shrugged," a foundational libertarian text, required reading for students.

As The New Yorker's Jane Mayer recently describes in her fascinating profile of the Kochs and the giant conglomerate they run, Koch Industries, Mercatus takes positions on environmental, tax and a range of other issues that conveniently align with the brothers' political and economic perspective (By law, as she notes, tax-exempt operations like Mercatus are required to be nonpartisan and work to promote the public welfare.)

Financial records show that the Koch family foundations have contributed more than thirty million dollars to George Mason, much of which has gone to the Mercatus Center, a nonprofit organization. "It's ground zero for deregulation policy in Washington," Rob Stein, the Democratic strategist, said. It is an unusual arrangement. "George Mason is a public university, and receives public funds," Stein noted. "Virginia is hosting an institution that the Kochs practically control."

The founder of the Mercatus Center is Richard Fink, formerly an economist. Fink heads Koch Industries' lobbying operation in Washington. In addition, he is the president of the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, the president of the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, a director of the Fred C. and Mary R. Koch Foundation, and a director and co-founder, with David Koch, of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation.

The conflict between Austrian and Keynesian economic principles isn't some Ivory Tower sideshow -- it's at the heart of key issues facing businesses and consumers around the globe. To wit, whether the U.S. and Europe should focus on fiscal stimulus or deficit reduction. Boettke is therefore on the front lines of the battle for public opinion on such matters.

With this battle playing out on cable TV, the Internet and elsewhere in media, Boettke is described in the Journal story as wary of being linked with anti-government "crackpots" and "conspiracy theorists" trying to destroy the "Road to Serfdom." For anyone familiar with the frankly anarcho-corporatist agenda of the Kochs, however, his association with Mercator is a curious way to distance himself from loopy conspiracies. Odder still that the paper didn't see fit to mention the connection.

Image from Wikimedia Commons, CC 1.2
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