The Volker Fund redirected a charity into American conservative intellectual politics

Evidence

Luhnow had become president of the William Volker & Co., a national furniture distribution company and window-shade manufacturer located in Kansas City, Missouri in January 1938. Luhnow was a strident anti-New Deal conservative and was then in the process of converting a philanthropic fund originally intended to help the citizens of Kansas City into something completely different: a foundation to promote a rethinking of liberal politics in America. The Fund, which existed from 1932 to 1965, would play a major role in conservative intellectual politics in twentieth-century America. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 716

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Conservative foundations funded unorthodox ideas decades before the think tank boom — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 322; Volker Fund wanted an American Road to Serfdom pitched at near-literacy level — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 738; The Volker Fund bankrolled FEE as a libertarian propaganda outlet — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 758 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Volker Fund wanted an American Road to Serfdom pitched at near-literacy level #expands (0.85) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 738
• Capitalism and Freedom originated as a Volker Fund project delivered a decade late #expands (0.85) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 793
• The Volker Fund bankrolled FEE as a libertarian propaganda outlet #expands (0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 758
• Volker Fund pushed neoliberal reformulation to serve corporate Cold War interests #expands (0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 762
• Neoliberal funders treated policy influence as a vertically integrated production pipeline #expands (0.80) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 127