Business elites actively cultivated Hayek and promoted his ideas widely

Evidence

The British ambassador to the United States reported in March of 1945: “Wall Street looks on Hayek as the richest goldmine yet discovered and are peddling his views everywhere” (quoted in Hoover 2003, 184). For example, Hayek and Hutchins entertained “Laird Bell, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the University [of Chicago]; John Ivy, an oil operator from Huston, Texas; Meyer Kestenbaum, President of Hart, Schaffner and Marx; William J. Kelly, President of Machinery and Allied Products Institute; Oscar Mayer, President of Oscar Mayer & Company, meat packers; John L. McCaffrey, President of International Harvester Company; and Hermon D. Smith, Vice-President of Marsh & McLennan, Insurance” (HPHI, Hutchins to Hayek, January 12, 1950, box 55, folder 1). — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 875

Categorization

• CANDY: “Wall Street looks on Hayek as the richest goldmine yet discovered and are peddling his views everywhere” is a genuinely quotable line for casual conversation.
• XREF: Connects to the thesis that corporate capital underwrote the neoliberal countermovement against Keynesianism. — connects to: Hayek’s obscurity in 1931 belied his dense Viennese network — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 65; Reader’s Digest’s abridgment made Hayek famous in America — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 221; Hayek accepted that funders would shape the institution. — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 253