In February, Brooks even managed to pull off the unthinkable: He got the Dalai Lama, a self-described socialist, to visit the American Enterprise Institute, which decries socialism. The title of the panel discussion featuring the Tibetan leader: “Happiness, free enterprise, and human flourishing.”
His happiness kick appears infectious. In fact, Brooks was recently tapped to serve on the advisory board of the Charles Koch Institute's Well-Being Initiative, a project to foster the conversation about well-being and how people can improve their lives.
As Slate points out today, billionaire Charles Koch informally introduced the Well-Being Initiative in a January blog post titled, "The Importance of Well-Being."
It is worth noting that AEI, along with a number of other conservative and libertarian think tanks, receives funding from the Kochs. Charles Koch was a co-founder of the libertarian think tank Cato Institute, and his family has donated more than $30 to it over the years.
And readers of Think Tank Watch will not forget the lawsuit that Charles and David Koch brought against Cato in 2012 in an attempt to gain greater control of the think tank's board.
