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

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/books/dark-money/
- Published: 2016-06-09T17:05:00+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**Philanthropy has a dark side. In this landmark work of investigative journalism,
Jane Mayer exposes how a network of ultra-wealthy American conservatives, led by
the Koch brothers, spent decades using tax-exempt charitable foundations to fund
a systematic campaign to reshape American politics, dismantle government regulation,
and defeat action on climate change. Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand
how private money shapes public life.**

In the United States, charitable foundations enjoy extraordinary tax privileges.
Donations to them are tax-deductible; their investment income is largely untaxed;
and they can operate with minimal public accountability. These privileges were designed
to encourage genuine philanthropy, the promotion of the public good. But as Jane
Mayer reveals in this meticulous and revelatory investigation, they have also provided
the infrastructure for one of the most consequential political operations in modern
history.

Drawing on hundreds of interviews, newly unearthed documents, and years of reporting
for _The New Yorker_, Mayer traces the network of foundations, think tanks, and 
advocacy organisations built by Charles and David Koch and a small group of allied
billionaires (the Scaifes, the Olins, the Bradleys) whose beliefs place them far
outside the mainstream of American conservatism.

 * [**Buy the book**](https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1925228843?tag=219)

## Four decades of funding an alternative political infrastructure

Opposed to taxation in almost any form, deeply hostile to environmental and workplace
regulation, and determined to reshape the Republican Party in their image, this 
network spent hundreds of millions of dollars over four decades constructing an 
alternative intellectual and political infrastructure.

The book reveals how academic institutions were funded to produce research supporting
deregulation; how think tanks with innocuous names generated policy papers that 
found their way into legislation; how the Tea Party movement, presented to the public
as a spontaneous popular uprising, was in significant part organised and financed
by networks funded by this same group; and how the Citizens United Supreme Court
decision, which dramatically expanded the role of money in American politics, was
itself the product of legal advocacy funded by the network.

## A book about power

_Dark Money_ is not primarily a book about charity: it is a book about power. But
for UK fundraisers, civil society leaders, and anyone interested in the relationship
between private wealth and public life, its lessons are directly relevant. The mechanisms
it describes — the use of philanthropic structures to advance political agendas,
the funding of think tanks to shift the boundaries of acceptable opinion, the cultivation
of academic institutions to legitimise political projects — are not uniquely American.

The book was shortlisted for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, the National Book Critics
Circle Award, and the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize.

## **About Jane Mayer**

Jane Mayer is a staff writer for _The New Yorker_ and one of America’s most decorated
investigative journalists. She has won the John Chancellor Award, the George Polk
Award, the Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting, and the I.F. Stone
Medal for Journalistic Independence.

Her previous books include _The Dark Side_, an account of the US government’s use
of torture after 9/11, and _Strange Justice_, a finalist for the National Book Award.
She lives in Washington, DC.

## **Reviews**

> “Meticulously, fascinatingly and horrifyingly explains how eccentric American 
> billionaires hijacked our democracy.”
> _**Observer**_

> “Utterly brilliant and chilling.”
> **Naomi Klein**

> “Dark Money piles up facts and anecdotes to support its central thesis: the evasion
> by the very rich of any obligation to rise above self-interest and serve the public
> interest. The billionaires do all the mischief they can, and Jane Mayer, in this
> brave and resourceful book, has numbered their abuses with admirable pertinacity.”
> **
> David Bromwich, _The Nation_**

> “The importance of Dark Money does not flow from any explosive new revelation,
> but from its scope and perspective. It is not easy to uncover the inner workings
> of an essentially secretive political establishment. Mayer has come as close to
> doing it as anyone is likely to come anytime soon.” 
> **Alan Ehrenhalt, _New York
> Times Book Review_**

## Related books on UK Fundraising

 * _Winners Take All_ (Giridharadas) for the broader elite philanthropy critique;
 * _No Such Thing as a Free Gift_ (McGoey) for similar questions about the Gates
   Foundation;
 * _Limitarianism_ (Robeyns) for the philosophical case against concentrations of
   wealth and power;
 * _[Philanthrocapitalism](https://fundraising.co.uk/2008/09/27/amazon-239/)_ (Bishop&
   Green) for the opposing view.