Mont Pèlerin entrepreneurship scholarship was co-financed and steered by corporate interests.

Evidence

The topic of entrepreneurship arrived at the Mont Pèlerin Society in earnest in 1970 when the German economist Günter Schmölders opened the conference on the “image of the entrepreneur” which took place from August 30 to September 5 (on Schmölders and his early contribution to behavioral economics, see Graf in this volume). The content of the Munich MPS conference papers was not a purely academic matter. The focus on the entrepreneur was also part of a strategic agenda-setting effort on the part of neoliberal intellectual circles in close interaction and collaboration with corporate leaders from industry and banking. West Germany’s leading technology company, Siemens, provided office space and logistics. A wide range of medium and large German enterprises provided funding. Schmölders used the Aktionsgemeinschaft Soziale Marktwirtschaft (Action Group for a Social Market Economy) and the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Selbständiger Unternehmer (Association of Independent Entrepreneurs) to obtain funding. The former is a think tank financed by corporate members, which had been originally founded in 1953 to support Ludwig Erhard’s neoliberal version of a social market economy. The latter is a business association of family firms, which had contributed heavily to think tanks. The support from big corporations and family firms suggested cross-sectoral interest in the entrepreneurship theme in Germany. Instead of an opposition between big-firm management and family-firm entrepreneurship, there was an emerging consensus on the need for a common approach to entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial management. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 281

Categorization

• XREF: Links to the book’s broader theme of fracturing crude neoliberal caricatures — here showing corporatist network-building behind ostensibly academic entrepreneurship discourse. — connects to: Corporate funding made the first Mont Pèlerin meeting financially possible — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 117; The Mont Pèlerin Society shifted from elite academia toward business interests — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 374; Corporate and family money funded the Mont Pelerin Society’s American meeting — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1464 (+5 more)
• FICTION: The Siemens office-space and corporate funding behind an academic conference on the ‘image of the entrepreneur’ could seed a scene about intellectual agenda-setting as patronage.

Broader Connections

• Corporate money shaped Mont Pèlerin debates by steering theory toward practical business problems #expands (0.90) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 955
• Corporate and family money funded the Mont Pelerin Society’s American meeting #corroborates (0.86) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1464
• Corporate funding made the first Mont Pèlerin meeting financially possible #corroborates (0.85) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 117
• Big-business funders backing anticommunist causes also funded the Mont Pèlerin Society #corroborates (0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 972
• The Mont Pèlerin Society deliberately networked academia, media, business, and politics from its founding. #expands (0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 128
• The Mont Pèlerin Society shifted from elite academia toward business interests #expands (0.78) — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 374
• French employers’ federation CNPF financed the Mont Pèlerin Society’s European operations #corroborates (0.76) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 292
• Early Mont Pèlerin Society activity depended on small ideological think tanks for funding #qualifies (0.74) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1454