Recruiting the Wrong Allies Can Be A Mistake

Apparently, some of the early advocates for capitalism tried recruiting aristocrats (who were worried that the lower classes might get richer) by assuring them that the poor would stay poor even under capitalism. (I say apparently because I haven't heard of the people with the worst quotes. There were damning quotes from nobodies and not-so-bad quotes from people like Frances Hutcheson.) This may have had an influence on Karl Marx.

More recently, Bill Gates mentioned population control in the course of the discussion of vaccines. This caused a wide variety of crackpots to assume that meant there were sterilizing agents in the vaccines. (The odd thing is that Bill Gates is willing to admit Malthusians aren't always right.)

Maybe it was a mistake for the early advocates of capitalism to try to recruit aristocrats and maybe it was a mistake for vaccine advocates to try to recruit population controllers.