With Michael E. Hartmann, the economist and policy analyst talks about his recent article “Think Tanks Have Defeated Democracy;” why the U.S. has so many think tanks; how that differs from other democracies; and what philanthropy, its own managerial elite, and the one it funds have done to civil society rightly understood and democracy in America.
In Laura K. Field’s book on the “making of the new MAGA right,” there could be no mythologizable, pre-2016 “Powell memo.” Since ’16, a different conservative intellectual infrastructure has arisen and is still developing, with new thinking and organizations and changed old groups—all with generally also-different and still-developing funding support.
A survey of some context.
Conceptions of civil society among populist conservative writers and thinkers and in magazines and journals open to populist conservatism.
In J. D. Vance’s Munich Security Conference speech, echoes of the Pera-Ratzinger debate’s basic questions about identity, democracy, and the West—and the ability, the very place, of the people to democratically offer answers to those questions.
Back to the future, of foundations.
The sociologist talks to Michael E. Hartmann about what happened in previous Great Awokenings, the choice before symbolic capitalists in the face of growing populist reaction against them, the similarity of symbolic capitalists in conservative philanthropy and the rest of philanthropy, and recommendations for how they should all defend themselves and their position during the coming years.
The sociologist talks to Michael E. Hartmann about symbolic capitalists in general and in philanthropy and the nonprofit sector in particular, how they exacerbate a lot of problems, and why the growth in their numbers has been making things even worse.
To counter attacks from the Trump administration, philanthropy should adopt Walker’s pluralism playbook.
The analyst and author talks to Daniel P. Schmidt and Michael E. Hartmann about philanthropy’s reaction to popular discontent with elites, contemplates the populist future of conservatism, and considers some potential implications of that future for unpopular philanthropy.
The analyst and author talks to Daniel P. Schmidt and Michael E. Hartmann about philanthropy as an elite institution that should be as “on the defensive” against populist discontent as much as all of the other such institutions that have so ill-exercised their authority.
The anti-elite tone of Marco Rubio’s new book is evidence that he understands what gave rise to Donald Trump in 2016 and what that ascendant populism portends for future political and policy debates, including the politics surrounding—and potentially, the policy structuring—establishment philanthropy.
Remarks from a panel discussion on populism at the “Foundations on the Hill” event for foundation leaders and officials in Washington, D.C.
Remarks from a panel discussion on populism at the “Foundations on the Hill” event for foundation leaders and officials in Washington, D.C.
This article, republished with permission, originally appeared on the great Rockefeller Archive Center’s (RAC’s) RE:source website on February 20, 2019. It is based on the keynote address of a conference RAC organized on the 50th anniversary of the Tax Reform Act of 1969. (Footnotes omitted.) Fifty years ago, on December 30, 1969, President Richard Nixon… Continue reading From populist crusade to comprehensive regulation: the Tax Reform Act of 1969
“[T]oday’s politics of the street,” according to political historian Donald T. Critchlow, “resembles that of the late Roman Republic, when oligarchs, such as Caesar, Sulla, and Catiline, organized mobs to serve their factional interests.”
