The Koch Brothers may find Chafuen to be their Golden Boy, but in
fact, they are funding their own demise. At first blush, Libertarian
governments look real good, in so far as offering weak resistance to
being ravaged and plundered.
But should they succeed in actually establishing such a Libertarian
government, its very weak and limited structure would leave itself
open to revolution. As surely as such a limp Libertarian government
can be easily manipulated by the Corporate Privateers, so will it
crumble under the boots of angry Workers, cheated one time too often.
For the Billionaires, Capitalism, especially Corporate Capitalism is a
far more stable government, still well disposed to their control. For
the Working Class, some form of Socialism would be in their best
interest. That is why the current Ruling Class has spent so much
time, energy and money on discrediting socialism. The rich understand
what is a threat to their privileged lives. Too bad the Working Class
can't figure out what sort of government would be to their
advantage...and go for it.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/9/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
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Photo Illustration: The Intercept. AP Photo
Sphere of Influence: How American Libertarians Are Remaking Latin American
Politics
Lee Fang
August 9 2017, 6:00 a.m.
For Alejandro Chafuen, the gathering this spring at the Brick Hotel in
Buenos Aires was as much a homecoming as it was a victory lap. Chafuen, a
lanky Argentine-American, had spent his adult life working to undermine
left-wing social movements and governments in South and Central America,
and
boost a business-friendly version of libertarianism instead.
It was a lonely battle for decades, but not lately. Chafuen was among
friends at the 2017 Latin America Liberty Forum. The international meeting
of libertarian activists was sponsored by the Atlas Economic Research
Foundation, a leadership-training nonprofit now known simply as the Atlas
Network, which Chafuen has led since 1991. At the Brick Hotel, Chafuen was
reveling in recent victories; his years of work were starting to pay off,
thanks to political and economic circumstances — but also because of the
network of activists Chafuen has been working for so long to cultivate.
Over the past 10 years, leftist governments have used “money to buy votes,
to redistribute,” said Chafuen, seated comfortably in the lobby. But the
recent drop in commodity prices, coupled with corruption scandals, has
given
an opportunity for Atlas Network groups to spring into action. “When there
is an opening, you have a crisis, and there is some demand for change, you
have people who are trained to push for certain policies,” Chafuen noted,
paraphrasing the late Milton Friedman. “And in our case, we tend to favor
to
private solutions to public problems.”
Chafuen pointed to numerous Atlas-affiliated leaders now in the spotlight:
ministers in the new conservative government in Argentina, senators in
Bolivia, and the leaders of the Free Brazil Movement that took down Dilma
Rousseff’s presidency, where Chafuen’s network sprang to life before his
very eyes.
“In Brazil, I have been in the street demonstrations, and I’m like, ‘Hey,
this guy I met when he was 17, 18 — he is up there on the bus leading this.
This is crazy!’” Chafuen said, excitedly. Those in Atlas’s orbit were no
less excited to run into Chafuen in Buenos Aires. Activists from various
countries stopped Chafuen intermittently to sing his praises as he walked
through the hotel. For many, Chafuen, from his perch at Atlas, has served
as
a mentor, fiscal sponsor, and guiding beacon for a new political paradigm
in
their country.
Ousted Honduras' President Manuel Zelaya, left, looks down inside a car on
his way to the airport where he will board a flight to Nicaragua on the
outskirts of San Jose, Sunday, June 28, 2009. Soldiers seized Honduras'
national palace and sent the President Zelaya into exile in Costa Rica on
Sunday, hours before a disputed constitutional referendum. Zelaya, an ally
of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, said he was victim of a coup.
Honduras'
Congress sworn in Sunday congressional leader Roberto Micheletti as the
country's new President. (AP Photo/Kent Gilbert)
Ousted Honduras President Manuel Zelaya, left, looks down inside a car on
his way to the airport where he will board a flight to Nicaragua on the
outskirts of San Jose, Sunday, June 28, 2009.
Photo: Kent Gilbert/AP
A rightward shift is afoot in Latin American politics. Triumphant socialist
governments had once swept the region for much of the 21st century – from
Argentina’s Cristina Fernández de Kirchner to land reform populist Manuel
Zelaya in Honduras – championing new programs for the poor, nationalizing
businesses, and challenging U.S. dominance in hemispheric affairs.
In recent years, however, leftist leaders have fallen one after another,
sometimes in spectacular fashion. Zelaya was led from the presidential
palace in his pajamas in a military coup; in Argentina, a real-estate baron
swept to the presidency and Kirchner was indicted for corruption; and in
Brazil, the ruling Workers’ Party, facing a growing corruption scandal and
a
mass protest movement, was swept out of office via impeachment over charges
of budget chicanery.
This shift might appear as part of a larger regional rebalancing, merely
economic circumstances taking hold. And yet the Atlas Network seems
ever-present, a common thread nudging political developments along.
The story of the Atlas Network and its profound impact on ideology and
political power has never been fully told. But business filings and records
from three continents, along with interviews with libertarian leaders
across
the hemisphere, reveal the scope of its influential history. The
libertarian
network, which has reshaped political power in country after country, has
also operated as a quiet extension of U.S. foreign policy, with
Atlas-associated think tanks receiving quiet funding from the State
Department and the National Endowment for Democracy, a critical arm of
American soft power.
Though recent investigations have shed light on the role of powerful
conservative billionaires, such as the Koch brothers, in developing a
business-friendly version of libertarian thought, the Atlas Network, which
receives funding from Koch foundations, has recreated methods honed in the
Western world for developing countries.
The network is expansive, currently boasting loose partnerships with 450
think tanks around the world. Atlas says it dispensed over $5 million to
its
partners in 2016 alone.
Over the years, Atlas and its affiliated charitable foundations have
provided hundreds of grants to conservative and free-market think tanks in
Latin America, including the libertarian network that supported the Free
Brazil Movement and organizations behind a libertarian push in Argentina,
including Fundación Pensar, the Atlas think tank that merged with the
political party formed by Mauricio Macri, businessman who now leads the
country. The leaders of the Free Brazil Movement and the founder of
Fundación Eléutera in Honduras, an influential post-coup neoliberal think
tank, have received financial support from Atlas, and are among the next
generation of political operatives that have went through Atlas’s training
seminars.
The Atlas Network spans dozens of other think tanks across the region,
including prominent groups supporting right-wing forces behind the
unfolding
anti-government movement in Venezuela and the campaign of Sebastián Piñera,
the right-of-center candidate leading the polls for this year’s
presidential
election in Chile.
FILE - In this Dec. 2, 2015 file photo, people demonstrate against the
government as they take part in protest in favor of impeaching Brazil's
President Dilma Rousseff, in front of the National Congress, in Brasilia,
Brazil. The country has seen a vicious circle of ballooning crises over the
past year. Major scandals, some of which are connected to Rousseff, have
combined with tanking commodity prices to deliver blows to the powerhouse
economy, including credit-rating downgrades, a sharp currency devaluation
and 10-percent annual inflation. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)
People demonstrate against the government as they take part in protest in
favor of impeaching Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff, in front of the
National Congress, in Brasilia, Brazil in Dec. 2, 2015.
Photo: Eraldo Peres/AP
Nowhere has the Atlas method been better encapsulated than in a newly
formed
network of Brazilian free-market think tanks. Recently formed institutes
worked together to foment anger at socialist policies, with some
cultivating
academic centers, while others work to train activists and maintain a
constant war in the Brazilian media against leftist ideas.
The effort to focus anger solely at the left paid dividends last year for
the Brazilian right. The millennial activists of the Free Brazil Movement,
many of them trained in political organizing in the U.S., led a mass
movement to channel public anger over a vast corruption scandal against
Dilma, the left-of-center president popularly known by her first name. The
scandal, nicknamed Operação Lava Jato, or Operation Car Wash, is a
still-unfolding tale of bribery involving leading politicians from all of
Brazil’s major political parties, including the right-wing and center-right
parties. But the social media-savvy Free Brazil Movement, known by its
Portuguese initials, MBL, managed to direct the bulk of outrage squarely at
Dilma, demanding her ousting and an end to the welfare-centric policies of
her Workers’ Party.
The uprising, which has drawn comparisons to the tea party movement,
especially considering the quiet support from local industrial
conglomerates
and a new conspiracy-minded network of far-right media voices, ended 13
years of rule by the Workers’ Party by removing Dilma from office through
impeachment in 2016.
The landscape that MBL sprang from is a new development in Brazil. There
were perhaps three active libertarian think tanks 10 years ago, said Helio
Beltrão, a former hedge fund executive who now leads Instituto Mises, a
nonprofit named after the libertarian philosopher, Ludwig von Mises. Now,
he
said, with the support of Atlas, there are close to 30 such institutes
active in Brazil, all working collaboratively, along with groups, such as
Students for Liberty and MBL.
“It’s like a soccer team. Defense is the academia. The forward guys are the
politicians. We’ve scored a few goals,” he said, referring to Dilma’s
impeachment. The midfield, he said, are the “cultural guys” that shape
public opinion.
Beltrão explained that the think tank network is hoping to privatize the
national post office in Brazil, calling it “low-hanging fruit” that could
lead to a larger wave of free-market reforms. Many of the conservative
parties in Brazil embraced libertarian campaigners when they showed they
could mobilize hundreds of thousands of people to protest against Dilma,
but
haven’t yet adopted the fundamentals of supply-side theory.
Fernando Schüler, an academic and columnist associated with Instituto
Millenium, another Atlas think tank in Brazil, made the case another way.
“Brazil has 17,000 unions paid by public money, one day of salary per year
goes to unions, completely controlled by the left,” said Schüler. The only
way to reverse the socialist trend has been to out-maneuver them. “With
technology, people could by themselves participate, organize at low cost —
WhatsApp, Facebook, YouTube, using networks, a kind of public
manifestation,” he continued, explaining the way libertarian organizers
mobilized a protest movement against left-leaning politicians.
Organizers against Dilma had created a daily barrage of YouTube videos
mocking the Worker’s Party government, along with an interactive scoreboard
to encourage citizens to lobby their legislators to support impeachment.
Schüler noted that the Free Brazil Movement and his own think tank receive
financial support from local industrial trade groups, but the movement had
succeeded in part because it is not identified with the incumbent political
parties, most of which the general public views with suspicion. He argued
that the only way to radically reshape society and reverse popular
sentiment
in support of the welfare state was to wage a permanent cultural war to
confront left intellectuals and the media.
maxresdefault-1502212171
Fernando Schüler.
Photo: Screenshot from Youtube
One of the founders of Schüler’s Instituto Millenium think tank, Brazilian
blogger Rodrigo Constantino, has polarized Brazilian politics with
hyperpartisan rhetoric. Constantino, who has been called the “Breitbart of
Brazil” for his conspiratorial views and acidic right-wing commentary,
chairs yet another Atlas think tank, Instituto Liberal. He sees the
Brazilian left’s every move as a veiled attempt at subverting democracy,
from the use of the color red in the country’s World Cup logo to the Bolsa
Família cash assistance program to poor families.
Constantino is credited with popularizing a narrative that Worker’s Party
supporters are limousine liberals, wealthy hypocrites that flock to
socialism to claim the moral high ground while snubbing the working classes
they claim to represent.
The Breitbartization of public discourse is but one of the many ways the
Atlas network has subtly influenced political debate.
“It’s a very paternalistic state. It’s crazy. It’s a lot of state control,
and that’s the long-term challenge,” said Schüler, adding that despite
recent victories, libertarians had a long way to go in Brazil. He hoped to
copy the model of Margaret Thatcher, who relied on a network of libertarian
think tanks to push unpopular reforms. “This pension system is absurd. I
would privatize all education,” Schüler, rattling off a litany of changes
he
would make to society, from defunding labor unions to repealing the law
that
makes voting compulsory.
Yet the only way to make all that possible, he added, would be to build a
network of politically active nonprofits all waging separate battles to
push
the same libertarian goals. The existing model — the constellation of
right-wing think tanks in Washington, D.C., supported by powerful
endowments
— is the only path forward for Brazil, Schüler said.
Atlas, for its part, is busy doing just that. It gives grants for new think
tanks, provides courses on political management and public relations,
sponsors networking events around the world, and, in recent years, has
devoted special resources to prodding libertarians to influence public
opinion through social media and online videos.
An annual competition encourages Atlas’s network to produce viral YouTube
videos promoting laissez-faire ideas and ridiculing proponents of the
welfare state. James O’Keefe, the provocateur famous for needling Democrats
with his undercover videos, has appeared before Atlas to explain his
methods. Producers from a Wisconsin group that worked create online videos
to discredit teacher protests against Gov. Scott Walker’s law busting
public
sector unions have also provided instructions for Atlas’s training
sessions.
Caracas, Distrito Federal, Venezuela, South America
Crowd burning puppet of President Hugo Chavez at Plaza Altamira in protest
against government.
Photo: Lonely Planet Images/Getty Images
Among its other exploits of late, Atlas has played a role in a Latin
American nation roiled by the region’s most acute political and
humanitarian
crisis: Venezuela. Records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act
by author and activist Eva Golinger, as well as State Department cables
disclosed by whistleblower Chelsea Manning, reveal U.S. policymakers’
sophisticated effort to use Atlas think tanks in a long-running campaign to
destabilize the reign of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez.
As early as 1998, Cedice Libertad, Atlas’s flagship think tank in Caracas,
Venezuela’s capital, received regular financial support from the Center for
International Private Enterprise. In one grant letter, NED funds marked for
Cedice are listed to help advocate “a change in government.” The director
of
Cedice was among the signatories of the controversy “Carmona Decree”
supporting the short-lived military coup against Chávez in 2002.
A 2006 cable laid out a strategy from U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield
for
funding politically active nonprofits in Venezuela: “1) Strengthening
democratic institutions, 2) penetrating Chávez’s political base, 3)
dividing
Chavismo, 4) protecting vital U.S. business, and 5) isolating Chávez
internationally.”
In Venezula’s current crisis, Cedice has promoted the recent spate of
protests against President Nicholás Maduro, Chávez’s embattled successor.
Cedice is closely affiliated with opposition figure María Corina Machado,
one of the leaders of the massive anti-government street demonstrations in
recent months. Machado has publicly recognized Atlas for its work. In a
videotape message delivered to the group in 2014, she said, “Thank you to
the Atlas Network, to all freedom fighters.”
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has recognized Atlas for
its work: “Thank you to the Atlas Network, to all freedom fighters,” she
said in 2014.
At the Atlas Network’s Latin American Liberty Forum in Buenos Aires, young
leaders buzzed back and forth, sharing ideas on how to defeat socialism at
every level, from pitched battles on college campuses to mobilizing an
entire country to embrace impeachment.
Think tank “entrepreneurs” from Peru, the Dominican Republic, and Honduras
competed in a format along the lines of “Shark Tank,” an America reality
show where start-up businesses pitch to a panel of wealthy, ruthless
investors. Instead of seeking investments from a panel of venture
capitalists, however, the think tank leaders pitched policy marketing ideas
for a contest that awarded $5,000. In another session, strategies were
debated for attracting industry support to back economic reforms. In
another
room, political operatives debated arguments “lovers of liberty” can use to
respond to the global rise of populism to “redirect the sense of injustice
many feel” toward free-market goals.
One young leader from CADAL, a think tank in Buenos Aires, presented on an
idea to rank each Argentine province using what he called an “economic
liberty index,” which would use the level of taxation and regulation as the
main criteria to generate buzz for free-market reforms. The idea is
consciously modeled on similar strategies from the U.S., including the
Heritage Foundation’s “Index of Economic Freedom,” which measures countries
based on criteria that includes tax policies and regulatory barriers to
business formation.
Think tanks are traditionally associated with independent institutes formed
to develop unconventional solutions. But the Atlas model focuses less on
developing genuinely new policy proposals, and more on establishing
political organizations that carry the credibility of academic
institutions,
making them an effective organ for winning hearts and minds.
Free-market ideas — such as slashing taxes on the wealthy; whittling down
the public sector and placing it under the control of private operators;
and
liberalized trade rules and restrictions on labor unions — have always
struggled with a perception problem. Proponents of this vision have found
that voters tend to view such ideas as a vehicle for serving society’s
upper
crust. Rebranding economic libertarianism as a public interest ideology has
required elaborate strategies for mass persuasion.
But the Atlas model now spreading rapidly through Latin America is based on
a method perfected by decades of struggle in the U.S. and the U.K., as
libertarians worked to stem the tide of the surging post-war welfare state.
Map of Atlas group locations in South America.
Map of Atlas group locations in South America.
Map: The Intercept
Antony Fisher, a British entrepreneur and the founder of the Atlas Network,
pioneered the sale of libertarian economics to the broader public. The tack
was simple: Fisher made it his mission to, in the words of an associate,
“litter the world with free-market think tanks.”
The basis for Fisher’s ideals came from Friedrich Hayek, a forbearer of
modern thought on limited government. In 1946, after reading the Reader’s
Digest version of Hayek’s seminal book, “The Road to Serfdom,” Fisher
sought
a meeting with the Austrian economist in London. As recounted by his close
colleague John Blundell, Fisher suggested Hayek enter politics. But Hayek
demurred, replying that a bottom-up focus on shifting the public discourse
could better shape society.
Meanwhile, in the U.S., another free-market ideologue, Leonard Read, was
entertaining similar notions after leading the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s
Los Angeles branch into bruising battles with organized labor. To counter
the growth of the welfare state, a more elaborate response would be
necessary to share popular debates around the direction of society, without
the visible link to corporate interests.
Fisher was propelled forward by a fateful visit to Read’s newly formed
nonprofit, the Foundation for Economic Education, in New York, which was
founded to help sponsor and promote the ideas of free-market intellectuals.
There, libertarian economist F.A. Harper, at the time working at FEE,
advised Fisher on methods for creating his own nonprofit in the U.K.
During the trip, Fisher also traveled with Harper to Cornell University to
observe the latest animal industry breakthrough of battery cages, marveling
at the sight of 15,000 chickens housed in a single building. Fisher was
inspired to bring the innovation home with him. His factory, Buxted
Chickens, grew rapidly and made Fisher a substantial fortune in the
process.
Some of those profits went into other goal fostered during his New York
trip: In 1955, Fisher founded the Institute of Economic Affairs.
IEA helped popularize the once-obscure set of economists loosely affiliated
with Hayek’s ideas. The institute was a place to showcase opposition to
British society’s growing welfare state, connecting journalists to
free-market academics and disseminating critiques on a regular basis
through
opinion columns, radio interviews, and conferences.
Businesses provided the bulk of funding to IEA, as leading British
industrial and banking giants — from Barclays to BP — pitched in with
annual
contributions. According to “Making Thatcher’s Britain,” by historians Ben
Jackson and Robert Saunders, one shipping magnate remarked that, since
universities were providing ammunition for the unions, the IEA was an
important source of bullets for business.
As the economic slowdown and rising inflation of the 1970s shook the
foundations of British society, Tory politicians gravitated more and more
to
the IEA to provide an alternative vision — and IEA obliged with accessible
issue briefs and talking points politicians could use to bring free-market
concepts to the public. The Atlas Network proudly proclaims that the IEA
“laid the intellectual groundwork for what later became the Thatcher
Revolution of the 1980s.” IEA staff provided speechwriting for Margaret
Thatcher; supplemented her campaign with policy papers on topics as varied
as labor unions and price controls; and provided a response to her critics
in the mass media. In a letter to Fisher after her 1979 victory, Thatcher
wrote that the IEA created “the climate of opinion which made our victory
possible.”
“There’s no doubt there’s been enormous progress in Britain, the Institute
of Economic Affairs, which Antony Fisher set up, made an enormous
difference,” Milton Friedman once said. “It made possible Margaret
Thatcher.
It made possible not her election as prime minister but the policies that
she was able to follow. And the same thing in this country, the developing
thought along these lines made possible Ronald Reagan and the policies he
was able to follow.”
IEA had come full circle. Hayek set up an invitation-only group of
free-market economists called the Mont Pelerin Society. One of its members,
Ed Feulner, helped found of the conservative Washington think tank the
Heritage Foundation, drawing on IEA’s work for inspiration. Another Mont
Pelerin member, Ed Crane, founded the Cato Institute, the most prominent
libertarian think tank in the U.S.
Austrian-British economist and political philosopher Friedrich Hayek (1899
-
1992) with a class of students at the London School of Economics, 1948.
(Photo by Paul Popper/Popperfoto/Getty Images)
Austrian-British economist and political philosopher Friedrich Hayek with
a
class of students at the London School of Economics, 1948.
Photo: Paul Popper/Popperfoto/Getty Images
In 1981, Fisher, who had settled in San Francisco, set out to develop the
Atlas Economic Research Foundation at the urging of Hayek. Fisher had used
his success with IEA to court corporate donors to help establish a string
of
smaller, sometimes regional think tanks in New York, Canada, California,
and
Texas, among other places. With Atlas, though, the scale for Fisher’s
free-market think tank project would now be global: a nonprofit dedicated
to
continuing his work of establishing libertarian beachheads in every country
of the world. “The more institutes established throughout the world,”
Fisher
declared, “the more opportunity to tackle diverse problems begging for
resolution.”
Fisher began to fundraise, pitching corporate donors with the help of
letters from Hayek, Thatcher, and Friedman, including an urgent call for
donors to help reproduce the success of IEA through Atlas. Hayek wrote that
the IEA model “ought to be used to create similar institutes all over the
world.” He added, “It would be money well spent if large sums could be made
available for such a concerted effort.”
The proposal was sent to a list of high-level executives and soon, money
began pouring in from corporate coffers and Republican mega-donors,
including Richard Mellon Scaife. Companies, such as Pfizer, Procter &
Gamble, and Shell, all gave to Atlas. But their influence would need to
remain cloaked for the project to work, Fisher contended. “To influence
public opinion, it is necessary to avoid any suggestion of vested interest
or intent to indoctrinate,” Fisher noted in a proposal outlining the
purpose
of Atlas. Fisher added that IEA’s success hinged on the perception that it
was academic and impartial.
Atlas grew rapidly. By 1985, the network featured 27 institutions in 17
countries, including nonprofits in Italy, Mexico, Australia, and Peru.
And the timing could not have been better: Atlas’s international expansion
came just as the Reagan administration was doubling down on an aggressive
foreign policy, hoping to beat back leftist governments abroad.
While in public, Atlas declared that it received no government funding
(Fisher belittled foreign aid as just another “bribe” used to distort
market
forces), records show the network quietly worked to channel government
money
to its growing list of international partners.
In one 1982 letter from the International Communication Agency, a small
federal agency devoted to promote U.S. interests overseas, a bureaucrat at
the Office of Private Sector Programs wrote to Fisher, in response to an
inquiry about acquiring federal grants. The bureaucrat said he was barred
from giving “directly to foreign organizations,” but could cosponsor
“conferences or exchanges with organizations” hosted by groups like Atlas.
He encouraged Fisher to send over a proposal. The letter, sent one year
after Atlas’s founding, was the first indication that the network would
become a covert partner to U.S. foreign policy interests.
Memos and other records from Fisher show that, by 1986, Atlas had helped
schedule meetings with business executives to direct U.S. funds to its
network of think tanks. In one instance, an official from the U.S. Agency
for International Development, the principal foreign aid arm of the federal
government, recommended that the head of Coca-Cola’s subsidiary in Panama
work with Atlas to set up an IEA-style affiliate think tank there. Atlas
also drew funding from the coffers of the National Endowment for Democracy,
a government-charted nonprofit, founded in 1983, that is funded largely by
the State Department and USAID to build U.S.-friendly political
institutions
in the developing world.
Alejandro Chafuen, of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, back right,
shakes hands with Rafael Alonzo, of Venezuela's Freedom Center for Economic
Studies, CEDICE, left, as Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa applauds
during
the opening of the "Freedom and Democracy" international forum in Caracas,
Thursday, May 28, 2009.(AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
Alejandro Chafuen, of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, back right,
shakes hands with Rafael Alonzo, of Venezuela’s Freedom Center for Economic
Studies, CEDICE, left, as Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa applauds
during
the opening of the “Freedom and Democracy” international forum in Caracas,
Thursday, May 28, 2009.
Photo: Ariana Cubillos/AP
With corporate and U.S. government funding pouring in, Atlas took another
fortuitous turn in 1985 with the arrival of Alejandro Chafuen. Linda
Whetstone, Fisher’s daughter, remembered in a tribute that, in 1985, a
young
Chafuen, then living in Oakland, showed up to Atlas’s San Francisco office
“and was willing to work for nothing.”
The Buenos Aires-born Chafuen hailed from what he described as “an
anti-Peronist family.” They were wealthy and, though raised in an era of
incredible turmoil in Argentina, Chafuen lived a life of relative
privilege.
He spent his teenage years playing tennis, dreaming of becoming a
professional athlete.
Chafuen credits his youthful ideological path to his appetite for devouring
libertarian texts, from Ayn Rand to booklets published by FEE, the Leonard
Read group that had originally inspired Fisher. After studying at Grove
City
College, a deeply conservative Christian liberal arts school in
Pennsylvania, where he served as the president of the student libertarian
club, Chafuen returned to his home country. The military had stepped in,
claiming a threat from communist revolutionaries. Thousands of students and
activists would be tortured and killed in the crackdown on left-wing
dissent
following the coup d’etat.
Chafuen remembers the time in a mostly positive light, later writing that
the military had acted out of necessity to prevent a communist “takeover of
the country.” While pursuing a teaching career, Chafuen encountered
“totalitarians of every style” within academic life. After the military
coup, he wrote that he noticed that his professors became “gentler,”
despite
their differences with him.
In other Latin American countries, too, libertarianism was finding a
receptive audience among military governments. In Chile, after the military
swept out the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende. Mont
Pelerin Society economists quickly flocked to the country, setting the
stage
for widespread libertarian reforms, including the privatization of industry
and the country’s pension system. Throughout the region, under the watch of
right-wing military leaders that had seized power, libertarian economic
policies began to take root.
For his part, Chafuen’s ideological zeal was on display as early as 1979,
when he published an essay for FEE titled “War Without End.” He described
the horrors of leftist terror, “like the Charles Manson family, or in
regimental strength, like the guerilla troops in the Middle East, Africa,
and South America.” There was a need, he wrote, for the “forces of
individual freedom and private property” to fight back.
His enthusiasm garnered attention. In 1980, at age 26, Chafuen was invited
to become the youngest member of the Mont Pelerin Society. He traveled to
Stanford, an opportunity that put him in direct contact with Read, Hayek,
and other leading libertarians. Within five years, Chafuen had married an
American and was living in Oakland. He began reaching out to Mont Pelerin
members in the Bay Area, including Fisher.
Throughout the region, under the watch of right-wing military leaders that
had seized power, libertarian economic policies began to take root.
According to Atlas’s board meeting notes, Fisher told his colleagues he had
made a $500 ex gratia Christmas payment that year to Chafuen, and hoped to
hire the young economist full-time to develop Atlas think tanks in Latin
America. The following year, Chafuen organized the first Atlas summit of
Latin American think tanks in Jamaica.
Chafuen understood the Atlas model well and worked diligently to expand the
network, helping to launch think tanks in Africa and Europe, though
focusing
his efforts in Latin America. Describing how to attract donors, Chafuen
once
noted in a lecture that donors cannot appear to pay for public surveys
because the polls would lose credibility. “Pfizer Inc. would not sponsor
surveys on health issues nor would Exxon pay for surveys on environmental
issues,” Chafuen noted. Libertarian think tanks, such as the ones in
Atlas’s
network, however, could not only present the same survey with more
credibility, but do so in a way that garnered coverage in the local media.
“Journalists are very much attracted by whatever is new and easy to
report,”
Chafuen said. The press is less interested in quoting libertarian
philosophers, he contended, but when a think tank produced a survey people
would listen. “And donors also see this,” he added.
In 1991, three years after Fisher died, Chafuen took helm of Atlas and
would
have the opportunity to speak to donors with authority about Atlas’s work.
He quickly began to rack up corporate sponsors to push company-specific
goals through the network. Philip Morris contributed regular grants to
Atlas, including a $50,000 contribution to the group in 1994, which was
disclosed years later through litigation. Records show that the tobacco
giant viewed Atlas as an ally for working on international litigation
issues.
Journalists in Chile, however, found out that Atlas-backed think tanks had
worked to quietly lobby against smoking regulations without disclosing
their
funding from tobacco companies, a strategy similar think tanks repeated
across the globe.
Corporate giants, such as ExxonMobil and MasterCard, were among Atlas’s
donors. But the group also attracted leading figures in libertarianism,
such
as the foundations associated with investor John Templeton and the
billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, which lavished Atlas and its
affiliates with regular contributions.
Chafuen’s fundraising prowess extended to the growing number of wealthy
conservative foundations that were beginning to flourish. He was a founding
member of Donors Trust, a secretive donor-advised fund that has doled out
over $400 million to libertarian nonprofits, including members of the Atlas
Network. He also serves as a trustee to the Chase Foundation of Virginia,
which was founded by a Mont Pelerin Society member and similarly sends cash
to Atlas think tanks.
Another wellspring of money came from the American government. Initially,
the National Endowment for Democracy encountered difficulty setting up
U.S.-friendly political nonprofits. Gerardo Bongiovanni, the president of
Fundación Libertad, an Atlas think tank in Rosario, Argentina, noted during
a lecture with Chafuen that the early seed money from NED’s grant partner,
the Center for International Private Enterprise, totaled $1 million between
1985 and 1987. The think tanks that received those initial grants quickly
folded, Bongiovanni said, citing lack of management training.
Atlas, however, managed to turn U.S. taxpayer money coming through the NED
and Center for International Private Enterprise into an important source of
funding for its growing network. The funding vehicles provided money to
help
boost Atlas think tanks in eastern Europe, following the fall of the Soviet
Union, and, later, to promote U.S. interests in the Middle East. Among the
recipients of the Center for International Private Enterprise’s cash is
Cedice Libertad, the group thanked by Venezuelan opposition leader María
Corina Machado.
WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 09: White House Deputy Assistant To The President
Sebastian Gorka participates in a television interview outside the White
House West Wing June 9, 2017 in Washington, DC. A former national security
editor for Breitbart, Gorka has hard-line stands on Islam and terrorism and
past involvement in right-wing Hungarian politics. (Photo by Chip
Somodevilla/Getty Images)
White House Deputy Assistant To The President Sebastian Gorka participates
in a television interview outside the White House West Wing June 9, 2017 in
Washington, DC.
Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
At the Brick Hotel in Buenos Aires, Chafuen reflected on the last three
decades. Fisher “would be overall pleased, and he would not believe how
much
our network grew,” Chafuen said, noting that perhaps the Atlas founder
would
not have expected the level of direct political engagement the group is
involved in.
Chafuen lit up when U.S. President Donald Trump came up, offering praise
for
the president’s appointees. And why not? The Trump administration is
littered with alumni of Atlas-related groups and friends of the network.
Sebastian Gorka, Trump’s Islamophobic counterterrorism adviser, once led an
Atlas-backed think tank in Hungary. Vice President Mike Pence has attended
an Atlas event and spoken highly of the group. Education Secretary Betsy
DeVos and Chafuen were close through their leadership roles at the Acton
Institute, a Michigan think tank that develops religious arguments in favor
of libertarian policies — which now maintains an affiliate in Brazil, the
Centro Interdisciplinar de Ética e Economia Personalista.
Perhaps Chafuen’s most prized figure in the administration, however, is
Judy
Shelton, an economist and senior fellow at the Atlas Network. After Trump’s
victory, Shelton was made the chair of the NED. She previously served as an
adviser to the Trump campaign and transition effort. Chafuen beamed when he
talked about it. “There you have the Atlas people being the chair of the
National Endowment for Democracy,” he said.
Before ending the interview, Chafuen intimated that there was more to come:
more think tanks, more efforts to overturn leftist governments, and more
Atlas devotees and alumni elevated to the highest levels of government the
world over. “The work is ongoing,” he said.
Later, Chafuen appeared at the gala for the Latin America Liberty Forum.
Along with a panel of Atlas experts, he discussed the need to ramp up
libertarian opposition movements in Ecuador and Venezuela.
