Dark Money
How a secretive group of billionaires is trying to buy political control in the US
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Dark Money
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Narrated by:
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Laurel Lefkow
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By:
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Jane Mayer
About this listen
One of The New York Times' top 10 books of 2016.
Why is America living in an age of profound economic inequality? Why, despite the desperate need to address climate change, have even modest environmental efforts been defeated again and again? Why have protections for employees been decimated? Why do hedge-fund billionaires pay a far lower tax rate than middle-class workers?
The conventional answer is that a popular uprising against "big government" led to the ascendancy of a broad-based conservative movement. But as Jane Mayer shows in this powerful, meticulously reported history, a network of exceedingly wealthy people with extreme libertarian views bankrolled a systematic, step-by-step plan to fundamentally alter the American political system.
The network has brought together some of the richest people on the planet. Their core beliefs - that taxes are a form of tyranny; that government oversight of business is an assault on freedom - are sincerely held. But these beliefs also advance their personal and corporate interests: many of their companies have run afoul of federal pollution, worker safety, securities, and tax laws. The chief figures in the network are Charles and David Koch, whose father made his fortune in part by building oil refineries in Stalin's Russia and Hitler's Germany. The patriarch later was a founding member of the John Birch Society, whose politics were so radical it believed Dwight Eisenhower was a communist. The brothers were schooled in a political philosophy that asserted the only role of government is to provide security and to enforce property rights.
When libertarian ideas proved decidedly unpopular with voters, the Koch brothers and their allies chose another path. If they pooled their vast resources, they could fund an interlocking array of organizations that could work in tandem to influence and ultimately control academic institutions, think tanks, the courts, statehouses, Congress, and, they hoped, the presidency. Richard Mellon Scaife, the mercurial heir to banking and oil fortunes, had the brilliant insight that most of their political activities could be written off as tax-deductible "philanthropy".
These organizations were given innocuous names such as Americans for Prosperity. Funding sources were hidden whenever possible. This process reached its apotheosis with the allegedly populist Tea Party movement, abetted mightily by the Citizens United decision - a case conceived of by legal advocates funded by the network.
The political operatives the network employs are disciplined, smart, and at times ruthless. Mayer documents instances in which people affiliated with these groups hired private detectives to impugn whistle-blowers, journalists, and even government investigators. And their efforts have been remarkably successful.
Dark Money is an audiobook that must be heard by anyone who cares about the future of American democracy.
©2016 Jane Mayer (P)2017 Audible, LtdCritic Reviews
What listeners say about Dark Money
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Anonymous User
- 22-02-2024
Everyone, everwhere should listen to how the system really works - it won't just be happening in the United States!
Clearly well-researched and fair to both sides. Essential to understand what is really going on and who is controlling it
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- Anonymous User
- 06-01-2023
A must read for climate and justice advocates.
Recommended to me. The widespread misinformation of climate change and the deepening inequity in the USA is clearly explained.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
- William Marshall
- 31-08-2020
A frightening look into the Orwellian USA world.
How wealth has grown to be a threat to the majority of mankind and the planet. It certainly looks like another Kochup.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Steve Cox
- 18-01-2018
Exceptional book, well researched and ruthless
A well researched and and take no prisoners account of money in politics and what that is doing to our democratic society.
Non partisan accounts of both big money on the left and right of the political spectrum
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Robert Starreveld
- 15-09-2019
Eye Opener
This book is a really eye opener for me! highly recommend for anyone who is interested in understanding the change in politics over the last decade
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- Anonymous User
- 28-07-2023
Horrendous, everyone should read this book
Horrendous everyone should read this book at least once. Laws need to change to catch-up with behaviour.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Anonymous User
- 23-08-2019
Devastating
Devastating, gripping account of the corruption of politics by big money. Hoping Jane Mayer writes a second volume covering 2016 to now
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Ian
- 13-11-2019
A must read
This is a well researched and presented book that makes you furious at and revolted by the manipulative forces that have warped our society. So much for the illusion of a free democracy. Everyone should read this brilliant horror story.
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- Eugenio Carvajal
- 21-03-2019
Reality is a lot scarier than fiction
Amazing book, full of facts that describes the beginning of the end of the great American dream due to a bunch of unscrupulous greedy business men.
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- Anonymous User
- 13-05-2022
Eye Opening and Concerning
Why is the US political landscape so divisive and dysfunctional? A good part of the answer lies in this outstanding treatise on the political project of the extremely wealthy, a project to subvert the political process and thwart any policy that would impede their desire to return to the gilded age plutocracy. Antithetical to democracy, the effect of the baffling Citizens United decision of the SCOTUS is laid bare. America is firmly in the grip of big money once again and the rise of big data is providing the means for that grip to only strengthen.
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