This month’s New York Magazine profiles Bruce Kovner, billionaire hedge fund manager who has played a critical role in funding the neo-conservative thought infrastructure.
He’s chairman of the American Enterprise Institute and a supporter of the Manhattan Institute and the conservative New York Sun.
What does his money pay for?
“Neoconservatism is a career,” says Scott McConnell, editor of American Conservative. “One thing neocons have that both other factions of conservatives and liberals don’t have is they can employ a lot of people. AEI provides a seat for the kind of mid-level intellectuals who can produce op-ed pieces. It’s 50 to 100 people with decent prose styles, or Ph.D.’s, and they form a critical mass. They help create the reality of being the dominant strain of conservatism.”
And why don’t we have that on the left? Well, while this piece is entitled “"George Soros’s Right-Wing Twin,” before the emergence of Mr. Soros (and a small group of others, including Peter Lewis and Jonathan Soros) there was little interest in building up a thought infrastructure on the left.
Time and time again, those of us in the progressive think tank world are met with challenges never faced by our compatriots on the conservative right. The primary challenge is just staying in business. For many foundations, we are too close to politics. On the other hand, many individual donors would rather give directly to politicians. Think tank business is hardly glamorous, and it takes a long time before its work is manifested. Can you picture the moveon.org campaign to raise money for a policy institute?
Hold a houseparty, raise money to support progressive intellectuals!
For only $10, you can win in 30 years!
Right.
Here’s my question to the readers of the Huffington Post:
How do progressive think tanks better make their case?