I said: >> Max notes that the Cato Institute's > intention is to dismantle the public sector . . . Though Max is generally right in his description, I think that it's wrong to take the Cato Institute's own rhetoric too seriously. Given that one of the members of their board -- Rupert Murdoch -- is one who eats at the public trough in a big way (taking advantage of the publicly-owned airwaves), it's more reasonable to see the Cato Institute as pushing free enterprise for the poor and middle classes (dismantle the public sector) but socialism for the rich (including military suppliers).<<
Max writes: >Those fellows over there are true believers, quite unlike Murdoch, who's a latecomer to the institution. They have always been pretty militant against 'socialism for the rich' in my experience....<
I am sure that Cato is filled with rabid free-marketeers. But you should look to where the money goes. Will the fat-cats who finance Cato pay for a study arguing that the chartering of corporations with limited liability is an undue interference with free markets? (The limited-liability joint-stock corporation couldn't exist without government interference in the "free market.") I doubt it, though a small number of "radical" studies will leak through to keep the Cato Institute's libertarian image up. ("Legalize Pot!") The more radical studies won't get the same press as the ones that help the rich. They won't get the same political forces (i.e., money) aligned behind them, either. Also, the more radical Catoans would never get hired. True anarchists would never be hired by Cato.
More generally, the point is that looking at "free market" vs. government intervention is deceiving. After all, Hitler was hardly a free marketeer. Nor was Mussolini. Nor are many much more moderate conservative political forces. (Conservatives want to preserve "traditional family values" (kinder, kuken, kirke) and the Nation.)
The key issue, on the other hand, is the power of the rich & powerful vs. the power of working people and other oppressed people. Cato Institute studies are used as weapons by the former. If they're not good weapons, they're not used.
It should be mentioned that (1) there are a lot of fatcats besides Murdoch on Cato's board and (2) Cato chose Murdoch, indicating a clear ideological convergence.
Jim Devine jdevine at popmail.lmu.edu & http://clawww.lmu.edu/Departments/ECON/jdevine.html