We Should All Be Grateful to the Four Sisters Funding Group

According to an article on the History News Network (seen via Ken MacLeod's weblog), one of the most important reasons pro-capitalist ideas have become more prominent in the past few decades is that they have been pushed by a small number of right-wing foundations known as the Four Sisters Funding Group (“Richard Mellon Scaife's various foundations, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Olin Foundation and the Smith Richardson Foundation”). In other words, we should all be grateful to them for helping to keep the US from sinking into a European-style morass.

There are a few problems with the FSFG. They haven't pushed some ideas enough. For example, I haven't seen anyone outside of a few academic types point out that, in the long run, nuclear reactors use up radioactive material. There have even been some instances where some of them tried pushing anti-capitalist ideas. For example, according to Media Transparency, the Richard Mellon Scaife foundations have been funding the Federation for American Immigration Reform. On the other hand, the History News Network article said that the FSFG strategy is coordinated by pro-immigration Grover Norquist, so the Scaife heresy appears to be harmless.