Forum Post: Really good reading: Grandpa Koch
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 13, 2011, 1:30 a.m. EST by looselyhuman
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In a series of early editorials, Harry Koch scoffed at the idea that land rents should be regulated, and ridiculed the plight of heavily indebted farmers, writing that while they might find indebtedness unpleasant, a much bigger problem was their laziness and inability to take care of the farm equipment they had purchased on credit. He patronized Quanah farmers with platitudes about honesty and success: "Be honest. Dishonesty seldom makes one rich, and when it does riches are a curse. There is no such thing as dishonest success." He delighted in the fact that unlike other cities and towns across America - filled with strikes, riots, political agitation and violent unrest - the people of Quanah largely steered clear of politics, concerning themselves with what they understood best: hard, honest labor. "A very commendable trait among western people," Harry wrote, "is that they have no time to give to politics."
Throughout the 1890s, Harry never shied from using his newspaper to promote specific business interests and as a platform to express his aristocratic views on society.
But something began to change at the turn of the century. Koch shed his abrasive attitude toward the masses and began reinventing himself as a champion of the common man.
In 1901, Koch published a long editorial that hinted at this transformation. In the piece, he defends popularly embattled trusts and monopolies with the counterintuitive argument that such protectors of wealth were a force for the common good. He based his argument on the false notion that trusts lowered the price of consumer goods:
"Let this thing be borne in mind as significant, that all real trusts, all that are destined to succeed and endure, are established on a basis of permanent lower prices for their products. Everybody knows that sugar and oil have been considerably cheaper since these industries have been under trust control. And the same is true, barring periods of fluctuation, of all industries under effective monopoly, from steel rails to cigarettes."
Harry Koch's transformation was remarkable: Not only was he attempting to convince readers of his point of view by appealing to their own best interests, but he was fleshing out economic arguments in language that his grandsons continue to use today. Harry's defense of trusts reads exactly like the pro-monopoly propaganda regularly cranked out by scholars at The Cato Institute - a libertarian think tank founded by Harry's grandson Charles Koch in 1977. University of California-Irvine Professor Richard McKenzie recently published an article in Cato's Regulation magazine titled "In Defense of Monopoly," in which he echoes Harry's 110-year-old editorial, including this claim: "The monopolist does not charge higher prices; it lowers them."
This new rhetorical approach was not Harry Koch's invention. Rather, Harry was being swept up in a larger national revolution in the way American business elites communicated with the public.
At the turn of the 20th century, growing public outrage at the way financial elites were handling the economy, combined with a rapid expansion of voting enfranchisement that increased participation in the democratic process from 15 percent of the population in 1890 to 50 percent in 1920, began posing a real threat to the entrenched interests of American corporations.
To protect itself, corporate America began experimenting with modern public relations techniques and developing strategies to manipulate and manage public perceptions.
Harry Koch was right in the thick of it.
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http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/279-82/8374-koch-family-empire-building
This post will generate at least two, stratch that, three Koch shill-bot auto-replies in under 5 minutes.
Cool post. Very informative.
:o)
I wonder if he had a relationship with Ed Bernays?
Engineering consent, for sure.
A genetic predisposition to being massive Kochs.
Indeed.
So what do?
The Koch brothers have their dirty little fingers in alot of places. Here in WI they threw a LOT of money our way so we wouldn't recall any of his R puppets. We didn't have a clean sweep but we got a couple of them. Next year we're going after WALKER (our governor) There's alot of states fighting the Koch's money, but we will WIN
Oh yeah, AFP owns Scott Walker and all the union-busting shills up there. And apparently a big part of it was to distract from some chemical plant they wanted to build? I don't remember the details. The point is that as libertarians, they're sure happy to manipulate people and government to suit their financial ends.
Another excerpt from above:
In the 1930s, corporations were forced to ramp up their pro-business public relations campaigns to deal with the violent backlash in public opinion caused by the Great Depression.
Harry Koch rolled out an aggressive multi-year attack on Roosevelt's New Deal. Tribune-Chief criticisms of the program echoed the propaganda of corporate boosters like the National Association of Manufacturers. The paper slammed public pensions, regulations, tariffs, unions, muckrakers, labor laws and deficits, and filled its op-ed space with pro-business opinion pieces delivered fresh from New York lobby groups like the American Bankers Association, whose president, R.S. Becht, wrote to assure Quanah readers that there was no need for the government to regulate banks. Industry self-regulation - or "voluntary self reform," as he called it - would be enough.
Despite, or because of, overwhelming public support for FDR's pension and welfare programs, they became major targets, with Harry Koch publishing two or three op-eds in a single day attacking them. "Some ten million old folks are wanting to draw $200 a month from the government, and one hundred million stand ready to quit work when they do. Why not pension all of them?" Koch wrote in a February 1935 editorial, while claiming in a different editorial that the "idea of an old age pension is a splendid idea ... such a pension is proper. But great care should be taken...in preparing old age pension laws."
His editorials contained the same familiar right-wing claims that we hear today: that there is not enough money to support "entitlement" programs, that government will tax industry into ruin, that similar programs in other countries have failed, that regulation is unconstitutional and workers, given the opportunity, will quit en masse and live off government charity.
In a 1934 editorial titled "Democracy's Problem," Harry rejected "mobocracy," which had "been discarded as undesirable, even if attainable." Mobocracy was the right's popular name for "tyranny of the majority," and remains a favorite whipping horse of Koch-funded libertarians, who increasingly promote the idea that America is not a democracy and was never intended to be one. Here's Steve H. Hanke, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, writing in a 2011 editorial: "Contrary to what propaganda has led the public to believe, America's Founding Fathers were skeptical and anxious about democracy. They were aware of the evils that accompany a tyranny of the majority. The Framers of the Constitution went to great lengths to ensure that the federal government was not based on the will of the majority and was not, therefore, democratic."
This comment will generate a Koch shill-bot auto-reply in less than 2 minutes.
I thought we were blaming Halliburton???
Or the jews?
Are the Koch's the new scapegoat of why we're failing at life?
Noted.
No. You're failing because you're a right-wing suck-butt.
Actually, not failing all at all. Sipping a 7&7 waiting for football tomorrow. Then I'll go to work on Monday for a little bit.
What will you be doing?
Oh, and I got you beat. I'm drinking a champagne and concord grape juice wine cooler with some chenin blanc in the mix...LOL!
So, you're a 1 percenter?
Apparently no more than you are. Do you think I earn $300,000 a year just because I drink home-made wine coolers?
I don't care if you earn more than 300k. Just please send me the recipe !
LOL! No. No soup for you! You like the Koch's and Halliburton. Besides, I vary it depending on how much wine I want in it.
Fine. No Gatorade Cool Blue and vodka recipe for you then! neener neener :-P
I'll be working long hours. dantes443322 = fail.
Hey, step in line....plenty of blame
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Really interesting article.
Yeah I really enjoyed it. Solid (historical) investigative journalism, for one thing. How rare.
Regarding monopoly, there are two main types of monopoly. There is the coercive monopoly, maintained by (government) force, which is the kind of monopoly that exists in today's economy and there is the non-coercive monopoly, which is maintained by the virtue of the product or service which is provided.
The Koch Brothers are just two more villains in the lefty's animated world.
Actually, just 2 more from a family of villains, much like the bush family.
The progressive element loves Koch and bush
Sarah Palin is also a funny person to bring up around them. She brings them to the brink of madness.
Trust me...the ol Koch boys are killing the moma bear these days...all the same
I feel bad for Jim Koch. I bet he is getting hell from some of the masses. Guys and gals, Samuel Adams isn't the drink of the devil.
You can tell when they don't understand what is going on by how they zero-in on single figures.
LOL. Yep. really though, I love how the Koch brothers are the new nemesis. Yet one of the brothers walked through the Occupy DC joke and wasn't even noticed. Like a visceral reaction with them...Koch....KOCH KOCH KOCH!!!!!
They only know the name. The folklore around the two brothers has grown into tales of war and conservative labor camps. Some actually believe the Koch brothers are using the HAARP system to infect their children with hard core Christianity. Bush is still pulling the strings down in Crawford and Sarah Palin is about to be President.
I'm just glad Blackwater is falling under the radar.
shhhhh...they're the true masterminds.
As well as Col. Sanders and his whee beedy eyes!
I wish KFC was open right now.
Screw KFC, and the Colonel.
Why the Colonel?
Because he puts an addictive chemical in his chicken that makes ya crave it fortnightly, smartass!
Don't know about all that. I just would like some biscuits and honey. Popeye's is closed as well.
It's a joke. Classic from "So, I married an axe murderer."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPMS6tGOACo
Whenever someone (not you, but OWS is ripe for it) starts posting conspiracies I bring up this scene.
LOL. I bet every family has one of those people.