Part I — The Oligarchic Paradigm

Part II — The Oligarchy’s Foot Soldiers

Today, we are witnessing a growing outcry against the disturbing activities of so-called “non-profit organizations” (NPOs) and “non-governmental organizations” (NGOs), both within the United States and internationally.

World-wide, these organizations—thousands of them—have played critical roles in attempts to overthrow governments, and they are at the forefront of “progressive” campaigns ranging from climate-change to drug legalization to media censorship to “gender studies,” among many other things. Many of these organizations function as mere “fronts” for the wealthy donors which bankroll them, including major foundations such as George Soros’ Open Society Foundation and Bill Gates’ Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The annual gatherings of the World Economic Forum in Davos are littered with participants from NPOs, NGOs and private foundations.

Many people are aware of the role now played by the foundation/non-profit complex. But those who are speaking out about the threat posed by this protected oligarchical force often make two critical mistakes in their analyses. First, many critics make the mistake of viewing the NPOs and NGOs as simply an arm of the Democratic Party and its “woke” political agenda. In reality, it is the other way around. The Biden administration and the current Democratic Party majority have simply been captured by a far more powerful and evil oligarchical apparatus. This points to the second mistake, the failure to comprehend the nature of the oligarchical empire within which we live.

Since the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901, and most emphatically escalating dramatically in the recent three decades, our constitutional Republic has been subverted from within. It has been transformed increasingly into an oligarchical state, one wherein the Constitutional command to “protect and defend the General Welfare” of all of the people, has been jettisoned in favor of rule by and for an elite. Many people sense this, and responses range from “tax the rich” on the left to “dismantle the deep state” on the right. Many, from both the right and left, also seem to agree on the evils of globalization. Yet very few understand the essence of the problem. The evil we confront is not simply the avaricious accumulation of wealth, but an oligarchical system which despises Western Christian civilization—and all cultures which recognize the sacredness and creative potential of the human individual— and considers 99 percent of human beings to be expendable.

In Saint Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians, Paul says, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”  Lyndon LaRouche often reminded his associates that the fundamental force for evil in the world was not simply one individual or entity, but an Oligarchical Principle, a principle which denies the divine spark within each human being, and which demands that all power should rest in the hands of an oligarchy. When speaking of “foundations” and “non-profits,” the words of Paul and LaRouche define the actual nature of the battle.

The Greeks Knew

Throughout the long history of monarchical and aristocratic rule, an axiomatic problem that continually confronted the ruling class was how to ensure the perpetuity of their reign into the future. Monarchies come and go, sometimes very bloodily (Louis XVI or Nicholas II). Major banking houses disappear, as happened to the Bardi, Peruzzi and Acciaioli houses of the 14^th century. The entire aristocratic class of France was nearly exterminated during the French Revolution. The question becomes, how to make oligarchical rule eternal, how to infuse it with permanence?

It was the Greek philosopher Plato who first examined the nature of oligarchical rule. In The Republic, Socrates undertakes an in-depth investigation of three forms of government:  the Republic, Democracy, and Oligarchy, and in Books VIII and IX of that work he turns his attention to the difficulties confronting governance by an oligarchy. Through Plato’s writing, Socrates details all of the inherent flaws of oligarchical rule and all of the practices which will lead to its downfall. He provides a spotlight on the issue of the rulers’ pursuit of wealth and money and the impoverishment of the people. He talks about Athens as being both the city of the rich and the city of the poor, and he shows that this arrangement is untenable, that it has no basis to survive into the future.

This is precisely the problem that the oligarchy has struggled with over a span of centuries.

The American Revolution changed human society in the most profound ways possible. It proclaimed a culture based on human freedom, equality, economic development, and ongoing upward human progress. It declared the United States to be sovereign over its own affairs, and this included—through Hamilton’s National Banking policies—sovereignty over monetary and financial affairs. Today, our modern-day oligarchs seek to eradicate that sovereignty, to eradicate even the role of elected officials in setting policy for the nation. But rather than attempting to rule as the despots of old, they have created a hybrid of the Oligarchy and Democracy of ancient Athens. It is the accumulated wealth—the fondi—which will govern, which will set all policy, and the millions of oligarchy-funded foot soldiers in the NPOs and NGOs will create the “democratic” popular backing for their policies.

The Modern Oligarchical System

On May 18, 1992, Lyndon LaRouche delivered a speech to a conference in Tlaxcala, Mexico. The speech consisted of an audio recording which LaRouche had prepared from his prison cell in Rochester, Minnesota. In that recording, LaRouche discusses the creation of the modern form of oligarchical financial rule, tracing it back to 16^th century Venice and then the emergence of the Anglo-Dutch financial system, which consolidated its power between the 1609 founding of the Bank of Amsterdam and Britain’s 1763 victory in the Seven Years War. What LaRouche outlines is the nature of an oligarchical financial empire, one which has established the means to rule in perpetuity. In one section, he says:[i]

How is the Anglo-American empire ruled? Who are its rulers? Who are those above government, who rule the Anglo-American system? . . .Their form of government is the fondo. The unit of government is the fondo. The fondo is like a financial trust or foundation, which is set up in perpetuity. It is supposedly immortal. It's not a human being, it's a trust, which operates on the basis of a covenant. And this trust is presumably an immortal personality. The trust is administered by groups of people who perpetuate themselves; that is, a group of directors or trustees who perpetuate themselves by recruiting new trustees to replace old ones, by firing some of their own members, acquiring new ones, and so forth and so on. And thus does the trust perpetuate itself biologically, as well as on paper. These trusts are often associated with names of wealthy or aristocratic families; but the families do not control the trust, in the sense of being stockholders; rather, the trust controls the families. The model for this form of trust or fondo is the pagan Roman law of the family, the law of the paterfamilias. That is, the trust, this non-human, quasi-immortal entity, is the pater familias, who can adopt heirs, who can disown heirs, who can have heirs killed. . .

When we speak in North America or in England of families, we are speaking of an aggregation of these trusts, or these fondi, which can have this power. So, if one were to speak of a Rockefeller, one is not speaking of a biological Rockefeller; one is speaking of Rockefeller trusts, foundations. And similarly, all the other numerous powerful families, such as Warburg or Rothschild, as well as the British royal family, which is such an entity. We're not speaking about the biological personalities, the heirs; we’re speaking rather of the institution of the quasi-immortal trust. Now these trusts deem themselves to run the world, pretty much as the Greek pagans describe the gods of Mt. Olympus. These are very nasty people. Zeus was the top god, he had the most power to strike others down and do evil things; the gods as a whole were cutting each other’s throats, squabbling about each other, manipulating nations, doing all kinds of nasty things, but they were deemed immortal—like the fondi. And they would meet in assembly to make sure that the arrangement under which the gods ruled the world, the trusts, and in which the ordinary people were merely virtual slaves to the gods, was perpetuated forever.

That's what we mean by oligarchism.

A Case Study: the Rockefeller Foundation

Today, the Rockefeller Foundation is just one among a plethora of oligarchical financial institutions. With assets of $4.1 billion, it ranks only 19^th among the largest U.S. foundations. But the founding of the Rockefeller Foundation, in 1913, was a watershed event in the history of the American Republic. Charities and wealthy individuals, such as Andrew Carnegie who gave away much of his money for charitable and civic projects, pre-date the Rockefeller Foundation, but what was established in 1913 was something entirely new.

The Rockefeller Foundation was the brainchild of John D. Rockefeller’s close business advisor Frederick Taylor Gates. Initially, in 1910, Gates and Rockefeller proposed to charter the new entity as a national non-profit foundation, but this was blocked in the U.S. Senate. During the Senate debate, one Senator attacked the proposed legislation, stating:

“As far as I can see, the proposed charter would authorize all these and a multitude of similar activities. If the object of the Rockefeller Foundation is to be coextensive with human civilization, then it may do anything and everything which its trustees think likely to effect reform or improvement. . .”

While another Senator used almost the same argument to support the bill:

“The Board of Trustees is to be wholly self-perpetuating, and to be authorized to do anything whatever, anywhere in the world, within the legal definition of philanthropy. . .  It is true that such a charter would confer vast powers. . .  It is true that no government at any time had conferred on corporations privileges so limitless even for philanthropic purposes. . .  Mr. Rockefeller is mortal; the charter will be immortal. . . It will be necessary to incorporate a fund which, passing from generation to generation, may do for the philanthropies of each generation, so long as organized society shall exist. This will correct the problem which befell the Christian charities of medieval times. . .  There will be convenience and safety in establishing at least one great fund so flexible and elastic as to meet the varying needs of advancing humanity from decade to decade, from generation to generation, from century to century.”

In his autobiography Chapters in My Life,[ii] Frederick Taylor Gates expresses the same sentiment:

“I saw no other course but for Mr. Rockefeller and his son to form a great series of philanthropies for forwarding civilization in all its elements in this land and in all lands: philanthropies, if possible, limitless in time and amount, broad in scope and self-perpetuating.” [all emphasis in quotations added ed.]

Despite its failure to obtain a federal charter, in 1913 New York State enacted legislation granting the Rockefeller Foundation a state charter. John D. Rockefeller signed over $100 million of Standard Oil shares as the initial endowment of the Foundation. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. was named as the first president.

Later that same year, Woodrow Wilson signed into law the Revenue Act of 1913. That legislation had three distinguishing components. First, it was the enabling legislation which created the national income tax that had been authorized by the Sixteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution;  second, it lowered tariffs to their lowest rate since 1857, thus ending the era of high protective tariffs that had existed from Lincoln through McKinley;  third, it created a new group of tax-exempt organizations dedicated to “social welfare.”  This latter provision was key both to the creation of foundations, as well as to the later explosive growth of 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) “non-profit” organizations.

Charitable institutions and primitive versions of foundations go back centuries, but the modern paradigm begins in 1913, and this transference of power to a non-elected financial elite escalated dramatically with the post-1971 creation of a global speculative financial system: —shadow banking, the offshore financial centers, wealth funds, hedge funds and the like. These institutions are all inter-meshed, and they now represent a financial and cultural power greater than most sovereign governments. The foundations—and the permanent wealth and power they hold—are the key policymakers for this oligarchical apparatus.

An Attempt to Tame the Beast

Beginning in the mid-1950s and culminating in two reports published in 1962 and 1963, Congressman Wright Patman conducted extensive hearings into the role of foundations before the U.S. House Select Committee on Small Business. In total, the Committee examined the activities of 534 separate foundations, which collectively held more than $10.3 billion in assets, and their work remains the most exhaustive investigation into foundations to date.[iii]

Among the conclusions of those two Reports, Patman found that “The economic life of our nation has become so intertwined with foundations that unless something is done about it, they will hold a dominant position in every phase of American life. . . the multi-million dollar foundations have replaced the trusts, that were broken up under Teddy Roosevelt.”

The exhaustive Reports produced by the Committee, which total more than 1,000 pages, document a long record of tax fraud, political activity, and other abuses. One subject of inquiry was a $2.4 million donation by the Ford Foundation to the Brookings Institute for the purpose of pushing policies supported by the Foundation.

At the Conclusion of the Report, the Committee offered several recommendations, including.

1. Revoke tax exempt status of foundations. Allow only tax exemptions for strictly defined and tightly regulated charitable organizations.
2. Place a 25-year limit on the lifespan of all foundations
3. Severely limit the financial ties between foundations and corporations
4. Ban foundations from borrowing or lending money
5. Ban financial speculation by foundations

Sadly, none of these recommendations have yet to be adopted.

Today’s Foundations—a Brief Introductory Sketch

Wright Patman’s warning that foundations, if not reined in, would come to “hold a dominant position in every phase of American life,” has been realized beyond his greatest fears, not only in the United States but globally. In 2023, the 50 largest foundations in the world hold more than $800 billion in assets, and the figure surpasses far more than $1 trillion if the scores of other foundations are included. Foundations own outright numerous for-profit corporations. For example, the Denmark-based Novo Nordisk Foundation, the largest foundation in the world, owns Novo Holdings A/S and Novo Nordisk, both major pharmaceutical and bio-medical companies which played a significant role in the global response to Covid-19.

Most prominently, the wealth funds of the foundations have played a central role in propagandizing and enforcing the oligarchy’s genocidal “climate control” policy, and they have been prime sponsors and participants in the ongoing COP conferences. In this work their efforts have been closely integrated with various agencies of the United Nations, an organization that can only be legitimately understood as an institutional arm of the fondi. At the same time, the foundations have become the prime sponsors and moneybags for a multitude of NGOs and NPOs who agitate, for example, on behalf of Joe Biden’s “Green New Deal.” 

A very partial list of the largest foundations (in order of assets) includes:

United States:

1. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
2. Ford Foundation
3. Getty Foundation
4. Lilly Endowment
5. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
6. William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
7. K. Kellogg Foundation
8. Bloomberg Family Foundation
9. David and Lucile Packard Foundation
10. Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation

Europe:

1. Novo Nordisk Foundation (Denmark) - largest in the world
2. Stichting INGKA Foundation (the Netherlands) - second largest in the world
3. Wellcome Trust (Great Britain)
4. The Church Commissioners (Great Britain-Church of England)
5. Robert Bosch Stiftung (largest Germany)
6. Garfield Weston Foundation (Great Britain)
7. Knut and Alice Wallenbergs Stiftelse (Sweden)
8. Realdania (Denmark)
9. Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (Portugal)
10. Sigrid Rausing Trust (Great Britain)
11. Zennström Philanthropies (Denmark)

Case Study:  The Foundations Platform F20

The Foundations Platform F20 is a network of more than 80 foundations from different parts of the world. Its focus is almost exclusively on what they call the “climate and biodiversity crises,” and F20 is in the forefront of the European campaign to cut carbon emissions and impose Malthusian “sustainable development.”  The Chairman of Foundations Platform F20 is Klaus Milke, formerly the founder of Stiftung Zukunftsfähigkeit (Foundation for Sustainability), based in Bonn/Germany. Stiftung Zukunftsfähigkeit, itself, was spawned by the German non-profit eco-group Germanwatch e. V. Since the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro, Germanwatch e. V, Stiftung Zukunftsfähigkeit and related “non-profits” have been in the forefront of dismantling Germany’s energy and manufacturing sectors, leading to Germany’s national economic suicide.

Case Study:  C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group

The C40 organization is a group of 96 cities around the world that represents one twelfth of the world's population. Its single-minded focus is fighting the “climate crisis” and reducing “greenhouse gas emissions” and other “climate risks.”  Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, serves as C40’s Chair and former Mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg as Board President. There are three primary oligarchical funders of C40:  Bloomberg Philanthropies (New York), Children's Investment Fund Foundation (London) and Realdania (Denmark).

Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) is the world's second largest private funder of “reproductive health” and green environmental non-profits. The founder of CIFF was Sir Christopher Anthony Hohn KCMG (The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George), a British billionaire hedge fund manager. The current CEO is Kate Hampton, a key figure behind the creation of the 2016 Paris Agreement. Hohn, himself, donated £50,000 to the wacko environmental group Extinction Rebellion,

Other funders of C40 include George Soros’ Open Society Foundation, Novo Nordisk Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts, Wellcome Trust, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

The Larger Fondi Infrastructure

The private foundations, while in some ways paramount in their role pushing oligarchical policies, are by no means the end of the story. All of these institutions are incestuously intertwined with the agencies and personnel of the Central Banking System, the European Union, the United Nations and the wealthiest players in the shadow banking system and the offshore financial centers.

BlackRock, Inc., the New York-based multinational “investment” company, is now the largest collector of wealth for investing in pension funds, foundations, public charities, etc. It holds more than $8.59 trillion in assets, more than any FDIC-insured bank. BlackRock has played a key role in enforcing the green ESG agenda on corporations and financial institutions. Similarly, the New York-based private equity firm Blackstone Inc. has pursued similar policies, along with its cannibalistic asset-stripping financial practices. Blackstone is currently the largest “alternative investment firm” globally.

It is also crucial to look at the explosive growth of Foundations and Trusts in the “offshore” private financial centers. Many of these institutions—particularly the Trusts—came into existence as a way to avoid taxes, engage in criminal activities and otherwise operate outside the jurisdiction of any sovereign government. The offshore foundations, however, also have the advantage to function much like their onshore cousins but without any interference from sovereign government. They are not restricted by legal statutes such as those governing 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) organizations in the United States.

The model for offshore foundations is the Panama Private Interest Foundation (PPIF). The PPIF, in turn, is based on the Liechtenstein “Stiftung” (family foundation). Liechtenstein can only be described as an “offshore state.”  Some reports assert that there are more foundations than residents in that small “nation.”  The Liechtenstein ‘Stiftung’ is a legal entity without shareholders. It is anonymous, i.e., only the Liechtenstein lawyer and trustee must be informed of the name of the founder and the purpose of the foundation, and none of the foundation’s activities are traceable. Liechtenstein foundations have long been infamous for money-laundering and other criminal activity, and in 2008 one Liechtenstein foundation was accused of “washing money” for the Spanish terrorist organization ETA.

The four primary “offshore” locations for PPIF/Liechtenstein type foundations are Belize, Nevis, Panama, and Cook Islands. A Belize foundation cannot be revoked or voided by another jurisdiction’s rulings, and it cannot be held accountable to foreign judgements. Foundations in the Cook Islands are valid even if the founder’s jurisdiction doesn’t recognize or even prohibits foundations. In all of these locations, foundations are exempt from all taxes, anonymity is protected, and there are no statutory requirements for accounting or auditing.

Summation

What is contained in this report barely scratches the surface of the subject at hand. The crucial issue is that which arose at the time of the founding of the Rockefeller Foundation. What was proposed was to create a system of private wealth which would be coextensive with human civilization. . . limitless in time and wholly self-perpetuating. Individuals are born and die. Nations come into existence and disappear, but the collective fondi will be limitless in time and scope. Their appetite is to control mankind’s destiny forever.

Part II – The Oligarchy’s Foot Soldiers

[i]. LaRouche, Lyndon, “Columbus's discovery of America and the strategic crisis today,” Executive Intelligence Review, June 5, 1992

[ii]. Gates, Frederick Taylor, Chapters In My Life, The Free Press, Macmillan Publishing Co., London 1977

[iii]. “Tax-Exempt Foundations and Charitable Trusts: their Impact on our Economy,” Chairman's Report to the Select Committee on Small business, House of Representatives, 87^th Congress, December 31, 1962, Wright Patman, Texas, Chairman