Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right

by Jane Mayer

in 2016 the Kochs’ private network of political groups had a bigger payroll than the Republican National Committee.

When you are 21, you will receive what now seems like a large sum of money. It will be yours to do what you will. It may be a blessing or a curse. You can use it as a valuable tool for accomplishment or you can squander it foolishly. If you choose to let this money destroy your initiative and independence, then it will be a curse to you and my action in giving it to you will have been a mistake. I should regret very much to have you miss the glorious feeling of accomplishment and I know you are not going to let me down. Remember that often adversity is a blessing in disguise and certainly the greatest character builder. Be kind and generous to one another and to your mother.

Radicals for Capitalism,

The Road to Serfdom

Unsafe at Any Speed,

Joseph Coors, a scion of the archconservative Colorado-based Coors brewery family.

The Coors Brewing Company, founded in 1873 by Adolph Coors, a Prussian immigrant, was famously hostile to unions and had repeated run-ins with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, which accused the company of discriminating against minority employees.

Hayek’s essay “The Intellectuals and Socialism.”

“Law and Economics is neutral, but it has a philosophical thrust in the direction of free markets and limited government. That is, like many disciplines, it seems neutral, but it isn’t in fact.”

Federalist Society, a powerful organization for conservative law students founded in 1982.

pathbreaking 1984 book, Losing Ground,

What’s the Matter with Kansas?

focus was on George Mason University, a

Market-Based Management, or MBM, and later distilled into his book The Science of Success.

not grass roots, but “Astroturf,” as such synthetic groups came to be known.

Michael Grunwald, author of The New New Deal,

Larry McCarthy,

The Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank, estimated that the hedge fund loophole cost the government over $6 billion a year—the cost of providing health care to three million children. Of that total, it said, almost $2 billion a year from the tax break went to just twenty-five individuals.

Louis Brandeis’s dictum that the country could have either “democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few,” but not both.

Contrary to predictions, the Citizens United decision hadn’t triggered a tidal wave of corporate political spending. Instead, it had empowered a few extraordinarily rich individuals with extreme and often self-serving agendas.