One consideration which factors into this statistic is the observation that, while the MPS was once the core furnace of intellectual white heat in forging new ideological principles in the first four decades of its existence, its centrality to the neoliberal project has diminished as we approach the present, and its intellectual heat has cooled appreciably. In effect, the level of practical success of neoliberal politics has resulted in the core now being primarily populated by affluent people who view membership as a status symbol, another Davos to inscribe on the social calendar, rather than joining a hand-picked crew of innovative thinkers cloistered away in intense debate and subtle disputation.

Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, loc. 508