An intellectual movement’s survival can hinge on a single key individual.

Evidence

The disintegration of the group was all the quicker because its existence depended on a few key individuals, particularly Louis Rougier. Initially hesitating between joining de Gaulle or Vichy, Rougier tried, unsuccessfully, to effect a secret agreement between Pétain and Churchill; subsequently, Rougier left France for the United States, where he soon found himself marginalized at the New York School for Social Research after he refused to recognize the legitimacy of France Libre. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 284

Categorization

• QUESTION: Curious whether this lesson about single-point-of-failure in intellectual networks prompted the founders to deliberately build the Mont Pèlerin Society as a more durable institution.
• XREF: Echoes Milgrom’s finding that institutions emerge to substitute for reliance on personal knowledge and relationships when networks grow.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 284