Business patrons funded free market ideas while fearing intellectual disloyalty

Evidence

This is not to suggest that the ideas developed by the intellectuals of the MPS were directly influenced by the funding role played by men like Crane, but rather that American business conservatives viewed the development of free market philosophy with great interest, recognizing it as an elegant, sophisticated statement of their world-view. Nor is it to argue that the relationship between the intellectuals and their patrons in the business world was always smooth or easy. On the contrary, the businessmen feared that intellectual organizations would prove insufficiently loyal in the political arena and that their unrestrained agenda would mean that they advanced arguments that did not necessarily help the political cause. Hayek’s relationship with Crane and with his other business supporters was at times rocky and strained, as the Austrian thinker had no intention of allowing his Society to become either a propagandistic organization or a plaything for rich men. By and large, however, both the businessmen and the intellectuals understood their usefulness to each other. The relationship between Hayek and Crane was an early example of a businessman providing financial and political support for free market ideas—as many more would in subsequent years, helping the ideology of the marketplace become ever more prestigious and powerful as the twentieth century went on. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1442

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader literature on the funding of the neoliberal network (e.g., the role of foundations in think tanks), and anticipates the business-right philanthropy described in later chapters. — connects to: Mainstream economics gives patrons the knowledge they pay for rather than objective truth. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 806; Business funding of libertarian academia was contested over membership composition — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1457; Neoliberalism’s doctrine was shaped from its start by business patrons — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the…, 87 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Business funding of libertarian academia was contested over membership composition #expands (0.85) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1457
• Neoliberalism’s doctrine was shaped from its start by business patrons #corroborates (0.85) — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists, 87
• Anti-New Deal businessmen funded and networked early neoliberalism, contradicting the marginality myth #expands (0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1439
• Neoliberal freedom-of-inquiry rhetoric was aimed at promoting their own market views within academia #expands (0.80) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 122
• Unorthodox minority ideas depend on wealthy iconoclasts for funding #expands (0.72) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1475