MPS faced a founding tension between populist reach and elite exclusivity

Evidence

The members needed to decide, Jewkes observed at a council meeting in 1959, “what sort of society the Mont Pèlerin Society shall become”: whether it would develop into a populist enterprise or remain restricted, as seemed increasingly unlikely, to a “limited elite.” — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 324

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The MPS founding manifesto committed to general values, not specific programmatic aims — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 149; MPS members resisted donor interference in program decisions — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1466; The MPS deliberately capped membership at five hundred to build exclusivity and global reach. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 134