The connections between wealthy donors like Crane—whose participation and imaginative commitment to the MPS went far beyond simply giving money to taking an active role in fundraising and organization for the conference—and intellectuals like Hayek are key to understanding the rise of the postwar right. Recognizing these relationships helps us to see the material basis for the postwar right. Seeing the networks between businessmen and intellectuals demands that we take account of the influence of free market thought on the core group of businessmen who remained critical of New Deal liberalism, and the extent to which they came to understand their antipathy to labor unions and the welfare state in terms of a struggle for freedom against the forces of collectivist tyranny. The motives of businessmen like Crane reflected a broad vision of society and their place within it, and cannot be reduced to short-term economic interest. They were motivated by a broad sense of political values, by a sweeping philosophical program, even more than a sense of immediate financial need.

Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, loc. 1475