Big donors could dictate the MPS agenda and displace Hayek’s intellectual leadership

Evidence

Because of his preeminent role in financing the meeting, Crane sought to intervene massively in the meeting’s program to the detriment of Hayek, who served more as a secretary than as an intellectual organizer of this meeting (Steiner 2007, chapter 4). … At Crane’s bidding, Hayek organized a full session on the problems of unions, essentially based on the works of Sylvester Petro. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 973

Categorization

• QUESTION: How autonomous was the Society’s intellectual direction from its funders? Worth chasing how often donors shaped program content.
• SEED: Angle: ‘When the money talks’ — a study of how corporate patrons steered the agenda of an ostensibly intellectual movement, with the union session as the case study.
• XREF: connects to: Hayek reconciled intellectual credibility with donor accommodation in founding MPS — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 260; Grant competitions let funders steer think-tank agendas more than direct persuasion did — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 578; MPS members resisted donor interference in program decisions — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1466 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Funders sought to shape MPS program and membership through their money #corroborates (0.95) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1465
• MPS members resisted donor interference in program decisions #contradicts (0.85) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1466