Democracy for Sale: Dark Money and Dirty Politics

Product Information

The middle section of the book explores how dark money has amplified the growing influence of the American right on British politics. This is a story of ideology and finance – of how the long-term Hayekian, neoliberal project has played out on these shores. It’s a great case study in how ruling elites can be infected with policy ideas and programmes via those “second-hand traders in ideas” of whom Hayek spoke so eloquently: academics, thinktanks and media commentators. In that context, Geoghegan’s account of the genesis and growth of the European Research Group – the party within a party that did for Theresa May – is absolutely riveting. And again it leaves one wondering why there was so little media exploration of the origins and financing of that particular little cabal.

Broadly speaking, this was an analysis of whether electoral law in the UK is up to scratch (no), how thinktanks get to shape debate as seemingly neutral entities, and the ability for interested parties to hide their funding, whether that is as a donor or recipient. It is written well, not getting bogged down in too many boring details, but it is also mostly a compendium of information that has already been revealed in the press. It is therefore interesting to have it all in one place, but it doesn't have any explosive revelations.

Further reading

u201c3/ What does that mean?\n\nSimply put: dominant corporations are not content to just gobble up & abuse their competitors \u2014 once dominant, they\u2019ll use their power to buy control over your government, too.\u201d — American Economic Liberties Project (@American Economic Liberties Project)

Democracy for Sale is an on-the-ground account of Indonesian democracy, analyzing its election campaigns and behind-the-scenes machinations. Edward Aspinall and Ward Berenschot assess the informal networks and political strategies that shape access to power and privilege in the messy political environment of contemporary Indonesia.

Table of Contents

BRITTANY KAISER: Once upon a time, I used to have a lot of respect for Julian Wheatland. I even thought we were friends. I thought we were building a billion-dollar company together that was going to allow me to do great things in the world. But, unfortunately, that’s a story that I told myself and a story he wanted me to believe that isn’t true at all. Where corporate-funded think tanks once provided the ideas for a conservative revolution, now they often appears as one side in a ful-scale assault on an increasingly hyperbolic culture war. So, Steve made the introductions to make sure that we would still get a commercial contract out of this political campaign, and both to Vote Leave and Leave.EU. Cambridge Analytica took Leave.EU, and AIQ, which was Cambridge Analytica’s essentially digital partner, before Cambridge Analytica could run our own digital campaigns, they were running the Vote Leave side, both funded by the Mercers, both with the same access to this giant database on American voters. And the thing that’s allowing this to happen is these information platforms like Facebook. And that is what’s so upsetting, because we can actually do something about that. We are the only country in the world that can hold Facebook accountable, yet we still have not done so. And we still keep going to their leadership hoping they do the right thing, but they have not. And why is that? Because no industry has ever shown in American history that it can regulate itself. There is a reason why antitrust laws exist in this country. There’s a tradition of holding companies accountable, and we need to re-embrace that tradition, especially as we enter into 2020, where the stakes could not be higher.