The Real Thing.

by Little Miss Attila on March 27, 2011

As in, “real political paranoia.” Matthew Continetti of The Weekly Standard debunks the myths about David and Charles Koch. The article also humanizes the brothers, though–no wonder lefty bloggers are already turning their wrath upon the Standard.

Market-Based Management: The words cast a spell on Koch Industries employees. The coinage is Charles’s. A Koch Industries website defines Market-Based Management (MBM for short) as “a holistic approach to management that integrates theory and practice and prepares organizations to deal successfully with the challenges of growth and change.” MBM does this “by applying the principles that allow free societies to prosper.” It’s hard to get more specific than that, however. Sometimes it seems as though Market-Based Management is whatever Charles Koch says it is. “He’s a teacher,” Rod Learned, director of internal communication for Koch Industries, told me. “He’s trying to get people to understand there are principles in life, like in engineering.”

At its heart, Market-Based Management seems to be about trial and error, about turning employees into entrepreneurs, about devolving power so that individuals in a project team or on the factory floor ask questions, make decisions, and feel like they have a stake in the company.

. . .

The Kochs’ politics didn’t match traditional categories. Republicans, in their view, were just as implicated in big government as Democrats. To this day the Cato Institute calls for a much smaller defense budget, a noninterventionist foreign policy, and liberal positions on social issues. Some of these views have made movement conservatives uneasy. In June 1979 National Review went so far as to publish an essay critical of Cato Institute libertarians by Lawrence V. Cott. The title of the piece was “Cato Institute & the Invisible Finger.” The finger in question belonged to Charles Koch.

. . .

The raw emotions and mindless smears left employees of Koch Industries hurt and befuddled. They kept searching for an answer. It was as if the universe had turned upside down. “All of us are given something, some more than others, and it’s up to us to build on it,” said Koch Minerals executive Steve Tatum. “Charles and David did. They built on what they inherited from their family. Hopefully, I have too. And I inherited nothing but a little help with college.

“What doesn’t seem right is when a person works to get through college, gets a degree, works for 25 years to become successful—and now you’re the bad guy,” Tatum said. “And I think, that’s the American dream, isn’t it?”

Tatum reclined in his chair and extended his hands, palms up. “Isn’t that what we want for everyone?”

{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }

ponce March 28, 2011 at 8:50 am

Is this a joke?

You do know the Koch bros. fund Matthew Continetti , LMA?

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