Philanthropic funders controlled the political composition of academic advisory committees

Evidence

As soon as the show got on the road, Luhnow moved with alacrity to further assert his prerogatives over the Free Market Study by inserting some of his deputies into the process. After acceptance by Director and the official concurrence by the Chicago administration, Luhnow wrote Hayek: “We presume that the large Advisory Committee will be set up rather promptly and we believe that it should be well thought out and I would like to ask that Leonard B. Read and Loren B. Miller be included on this Advisory Committee.” Luhnow also mandated that “the suggested Advisory Committee be submitted to Loren Miller for his examination before it is actually announced.” Luhnow thus ensured that men conforming to the Volker Fund’s political philosophy would oversee the progress of the Free Market Study project, even from its outset. Hayek had no option but to agree. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 756

Categorization

• XREF: Shows how private funders shaped intellectual work through vetting of personnel — parallels the discipline-by-funder dynamic in Milgrom’s institutional work and the idea of donor control. — connects to: Founded-board dynamics and suspicion stalked the émigré Institute’s grant applications — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1150; A private fund strategized placement of market advocates inside US academia — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 258; Industry groups rent university prestige to launder paid advocacy as academic scholarship — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 573 (+11 more)
• SEED: Article angle: the quiet power of funders to shape ‘independent’ advisory bodies through appointment vetting.

Broader Connections

• Intellectual congresses concentrated elite influence and steered lower-grade scholars #corroborates (0.82)
• Neoliberal funders treated policy influence as a vertically integrated production pipeline #expands (0.82) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 127
• Neoliberal freedom-of-inquiry rhetoric was aimed at promoting their own market views within academia #corroborates (0.80) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 122
• Business funding of libertarian academia was contested over membership composition #expands (0.78) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1457
• Institutional affiliations reveal neoliberal commitments better than Nobel prize membership does #expands (0.78) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 509
• Even neutral scholarship operates within enabling institutions and agencies #expands (0.75) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 858
• Tenured professors face their own subtle corruption via grant and fellowship politics #expands (0.75) — Hamid Dabashi, Brown Skin, White Masks, 323
• Mandate-system administrators directly shaped the postwar neoliberal movement #corroborates (0.75) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 88
• Neoliberal organizations coordinated their strategy through shared conferences #corroborates (0.74) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 326
• Neoliberal university governance subordinates academic freedom to institutional transactions #expands (0.72) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 663