http://www.pattern.com/bennettj-endcap.html
Corporations and the established wealthy have relied heavily on the power of nation-states to protect them from competition, and most importantly, from the instability of technological change (Schumpeter's creative destruction). One of the most successful public-relations triumphs of the Twentieth Century was the selling of the idea that social democracy was forced on the unwilling rich for the benefit of the poor and working classes. Rather, social democracy has been a device to stabilize society and limit opportunities for upward mobility to narrow, state-administered meritocratic channels.
Massive taxes on new income hurt new startups and upwardly mobile entrepreneurs far more than established wealthy families and corporations. Heavy financial and product regulations cripple new competition and protect established firms. State-mandated labor union rights and lavish mandated employee benefits also present a formidable barrier to entry to new companies. Existing family wealth can usually be sheltered in offshore trusts or other wealth-preservation devices available to those with the large existing fortunes needed to justify the transaction costs of these mechanisms.
Thus, it is no wonder that established wealthy families and their corporate empires have often supported social-democratic politics. The Rockefellers in the US, the Wallenbergs in Sweden, and the entire Tory wet class in Britain have spent much of the Twentieth Century supporting the genteel politics of regulated capitalism and tax-supported redistribution of (some) wealth. They would have preferred that politics be a debate between their parties (the Rockefeller Republicans in the US, the Christian Democrats on the Continent, and the pre-Thatcher Tories, exemplified by Rab Butler, in England) and the more moderate socialists and social-democrats of the Left (Humphrey Democrats, the Social Democratic parties of the Continent, Hugh Gaitskell's Labour in the UK).
It is also little wonder that the political classes, overwhelmingly dependent on large bureaucratic institutions for their incomes, viewed voices outside this consensus with horror. Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, and Margaret Thatcher in the political arena, and Milton Friedman and F.A. Hayek in the sphere of professional economics all encountered ferocious ridicule and criticism far out of proportion to the impact of the actual policies they advocated or implemented. What sparked intense opposition was their threat to a reigning consensus.