Getting off topic, but while I'm not a fan of any of those philosophies, I'd be wary of conflating too quickly these different varieties of free-market supporters. Rand fans who got into the whole Objectivism thing via her books, parts of the SF scene, etc., vs hereditary billionaires who are attracted to Heritage-Foundation-style free-market economics (whose political expression in the U.S. is mainly as "business Republicans", though sometimes as "corporate Democrats"), are fairly different groups of people. There's the occasional overlap, but it's mostly different people with different motivations.

True.

During the aughts, I attended many of our local political parties. Socialists, Dems, GOP, Libertarians, etc.

All these cliques, for lack of a better word, are mostly defined by what they're not (in opposition to other cliques).

The exception was our local Green Party. Their members were defined affirmatively, by what they stood for, vs in opposition to some other group.

The Libertarians were especially mushy in their supposedly beliefs, and no two agreed on anything other than everyone else was wrong. Kinda like the various Christian sects.

Downvotes for truth, here, I suppose.

You could add in the Mont Pelerin Society,Foundation for Economic Freedom, Atlas Network, and Cato Institute, Mercatus Center, Adam Smith Institute, Mercatus Center.

And personnel: Ludwig von Mises, Leonard Read, Murray Rothbard, Friedrich Hayek, the Kochs (Fred, Charles, David), for completeness.

Mark Ames has an excellent general summary: http://www.alternet.org/visions/true-history-libertarianism-...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mont_Pelerin_Society

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Network

https://www.atlasnetwork.org/partners/global-directory

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_for_Economic_Educ...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cato_Institute

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercatus_Center

See, e.g., Philip Mirowski's The Road From Mont Pelerin:

http://www.worldcat.org/title/road-from-mont-pelerin-the-mak...

Thanks for Mark Ames link. TL;DR: They were always hucksters for hire.

I recently read a magazine article that covers same history as Mirowski's book. Hayek's motivations and strategy for pushing his ideas (take over economics depts in higher ed) are fascinating, instructive. Sadly, I can't imagine how the left could replicate that effort for reality-based polcies.

On mobile, sorry no link handy. I'll edit if I can find it.

There's the related Lewis Powell Memorandum:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_F._Powell_Jr.#Powell_M...

I'm not immediately recalling or coming up with a Hayek reference, though it wouldn't surprise me in the least, and I'd very much like to see what you're thinking of if you can find it.

Ah, good.

At least someone on the Internet recognizes the Mercatus Center for the Koch propaganda machine that they are. It's unfortunate, the influence they have on the GMU graduates.

The Atlas Network's own validation that the whole snake pit is in fact an octopus (a connected and unified entity, not simply a set of disjoint units) is ... surprisingly useful.