This is not to suggest that the ideas developed by the intellectuals of the MPS were directly influenced by the funding role played by men like Crane, but rather that American business conservatives viewed the development of free market philosophy with great interest, recognizing it as an elegant, sophisticated statement of their world-view. Nor is it to argue that the relationship between the intellectuals and their patrons in the business world was always smooth or easy. On the contrary, the businessmen feared that intellectual organizations would prove insufficiently loyal in the political arena and that their unrestrained agenda would mean that they advanced arguments that did not necessarily help the political cause. Hayek’s relationship with Crane and with his other business supporters was at times rocky and strained, as the Austrian thinker had no intention of allowing his Society to become either a propagandistic organization or a plaything for rich men. By and large, however, both the businessmen and the intellectuals understood their usefulness to each other. The relationship between Hayek and Crane was an early example of a businessman providing financial and political support for free market ideas—as many more would in subsequent years, helping the ideology of the marketplace become ever more prestigious and powerful as the twentieth century went on.

Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, loc. 1442