Branko Milanovic over at his substack:
One has to admire Quinn Slobodan: in order to write his most recent book “Hayek’s bastards: The neoliberal roots of the populist right” (the title is modeled after “Voltaire’s bastards” by John Ralston Saul), he had to enter the world of madmen who produced movies, fictionalized novels, investment newsletters, and comic books detailing the forthcoming economic apocalypse (several apocalypses every year for half a century), invraisemblable conspiracies and own racial superiority. All of that was happening because the piles of money were paid by various tycoons to maintain in a comfortable lifestyle and publishing activity Mont Pelerin Society fellows, so that they could continue meeting each other and exchanging the predictions of doom and gloom in the luxury hotels of the Riviera, Alpine resorts and even on the Galapagos islands.
The reader is unsure if this is really a world of madmen or the world of smart people who pretend to be madmen in order to extract money from the self-interested oligarchs and credulous readers (so called “investors”) who subscribe to their investment newsletters. One has a strong felling of a con business, reminiscent of evangelical scandals where preachers call for humility and love while the real business is one of money.
Did it have to be so? Friedrich Hayek is a serious thinker. Did his writings empower madmen who in many ways distorted his thinking (I will come to that later)?
More here.
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