Neoliberal thought control is organized as nested institutions

Evidence

One then might regard specific academic departments where the neoliberals came to dominate before 1980 (University of Chicago Economics, the LSE, L’Institut Universitaire des Hautes Etudes Internationales at Geneva, Chicago Law School, St. Andrews in Scotland, Freiburg, the Virginia School, George Mason University) as the next outer layer of the Russian doll, one emergent public face of the thought collective—although one rarely publicly acknowledging links to the MPS. Another shell of the Russian doll was fashioned as the special-purpose foundations for the education and promotion of neoliberal doctrines; in its early days, these included entities such as the Volker Fund, the Earhart Foundation, the Relm Foundation, the Lilly Endowment, the John M. Olin Foundation, the Bradley Foundation, and the Foundation for Economic Education. These institutions were often set up as philanthropic or charitable units, if only to protect their tax status and seeming lack of bias. Some of these foundations were more than golden showers for the faithful, performing crucial organizational services as well: for instance, the Volker Fund kept a comprehensive “Directory” of affiliated neoliberal intellectuals, a list that had grown to 1,841 names by 1956. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 124

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘Russian doll’ layered-institution model parallels this chapter’s whole thought-collective argument; the Volker Fund’s 1,841-name directory is a concrete fact about the network’s scale. — connects to: Neoliberalism’s cohesion comes from thought-collective structure, not explicit doctrine — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 916; Neoliberal intellectuals formed a thought collective as a unit — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 10; The neoliberal thought collective is a multilevel, multiphase, multisector political capacity-building project — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 1325 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Neoliberalism’s cohesion comes from thought-collective structure, not explicit doctrine #corroborates (0.90) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 916
• Neoliberal organization was deliberately structured as layered, opaque concentric circles #corroborates (0.90) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 2119
• Neoliberal intellectuals formed a thought collective as a unit #corroborates (0.85) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 10
• The neoliberal thought collective is a multilevel, multiphase, multisector political capacity-building project #expands (0.85) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 1325
• Neoliberal ‘spontaneous order’ rhetoric masked deliberately orchestrated institutional networks #corroborates (0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 2114
• Neoliberalism is a self-consciously evolving thought collective, not a fixed catechism #expands (0.75) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 141