Someone tell Beck: If Soros was infected by the Fabian Society, so was Hayek

Written by Ned Resnikoff

Published

One of Glenn Beck's favorite bogeymen is billionaire speculator George Soros, who he claims is in the process of orchestrating the complete collapse of the American dollar. But it's not enough for Beck to simply accuse Soros of supervillainy; he needs to smear all other progressives in the process. And so Beck leads viewers down another chain of questionable reasoning to argue that Soros is a disciple of the nefarious "Fabian Socialists" who he says invented progressivism. Here's how Beck explained the connection on his Fox News show tonight:

In 1895, four people -- four Fabians -- started the London School of Economics. It is where the Fabian Society's stained glass window now resides. It is a school where, years later, all the way down here in 1949, a Hungarian named George Soros would enroll. He would graduate, and learn a lot there. He would eventually move to New York and build a massive financial portfolio with what he learned.

Beck is correct that four members of the Fabian Society founded the London School of Economics -- it says as much on the school's official website. But if “Fabian socialism” is as contagious as Beck says, look who else has been infected.

A list of notable socialists who attended the London School of Economics:

  • Sir Keith Murdoch, Publisher of the Adelaide News, and father of Rupert Murdoch, CEO of Fox News' parent company
  • Walter Bern, Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute
  • Elliott Abrams, Assistant Secretary of State for the Reagan Administration; Senior Director of the National Security Council for the Bush Administration
  • Michael Chertoff, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security for the Bush Administration
  • Colm Connolly, United States Attorney under the Bush Administration
  • Ed Feulner, President of the Heritage Foundation
  • William Gale, Council of Economic Advisors for the Bush Administration
  • Anthony Kennedy, Supreme Court Justice
  • Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL)
  • Richard Perle, Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Reagan Administration; Chairman of Defense Department Advsory Committee for the Bush Administration; fellow, American Enterprise Institute

Incidentally, Fox's own Stuart Varney -- last seen echoing Beck's economic doomsaying -- is also a graduate of the London School of Economics.

And Friedrich Hayek -- whose book, The Road to Serfdom, Beck has heavily promoted on his program -- taught at the London School of Economics. There he lectured alongside political philosopher Karl Popper, with whom he co-founded the libertarian think tank known as The Mont Pelerin Society. Why mention Popper? Because he instructed a young student by the name of George Soros, who once wrote that Popper's words “struck me with the force of revelation.”