How Firm a Foundation

It’s not always true that the good that men do lives after them: Many of the great fortunes of modem capitalism have been turned to the service of anti-market forces. Their great foundations, born of good intention and high purpose, have become the private bankers for modem liberalism. Exhibit A is the Ford Foundation.

At mid-century, the Ford family was confronted by three influences: its own awakening sense of charitable obligation; the mounting concern among its lawyers that the estate tax could dislodge the family from control of the Ford Motor Company; and the urgency felt by Ford PR executives to associate the family name, then clouded by controversy, with good works of the warm and fuzzy sort.

About the Author

Neal B. Freeman

Neal B. Freeman, businessman and journalist, was a director of National Review Inc. for 38 years.

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It’s not always true that the good that men do lives after them: Many of the great fortunes of modem capitalism have been turned to the service of anti-market forces. Their great foundations, born of good intention and high purpose, have become the private bankers for modem liberalism. Exhibit A is the Ford Foundation.

At mid-century, the Ford family was confronted by three influences: its own awakening sense of charitable obligation; the mounting concern among its lawyers that the estate tax could dislodge the family from control of the Ford Motor Company; and the urgency felt by Ford PR executives to associate the family name, then clouded by controversy, with good works of the warm and fuzzy sort.