So why talk about "the end goal" in terms of a multi-century historical scenario?

This is a conflation of two separate processes. The first process is often referred to as "The Enlightenment Project" even though it was conceived very differently in different countries, occurred over 300 years, from the second half of the 17th century at least until the middle of the 20th century, and was carried forward by a multitude of people, many of whom disagreed with each other. Still, there was sufficient commonality of goals, even between people that lived in different centuries and different countries, for it to be called an ongoing project. That project included recasting our understanding of the world from one based on divine providence and God acting in History to one based on naturalistic principles with men acting in a context of discoverable principles called "natural law" at times. That project has had much greater impact amongst educated elites than amongst the average man and social and religious conservatives have never accepted much of the revised understanding. These conservatives include most of the priesthood and hierarchy of the Catholic Church and of the clergy of the Protestant churches.  We won't even start with the Islamic traditions or various eastern religions here.

The second subject to which Hudson referred was a more focused and specific secular reaction to the social effects of the Enlightenment Project as manifested in the political and economic structure of the USA and, subsequently, Europe. And we know who these people are: Milton Friedman and the "Chicago School", who provided valuable intellectual leadership; Richard Mellon Sciafe, grandson of Hoover's Treasury Secretary, Andrew Mellon and heir to much of that fortune who supported financially the Club for Growth, the American Enterprise Institute and numerous other conservative and libertarian groups, and a host of others who never accepted the social reforms of the New Deal, including Social Security and the New Deal restrictions and regulations on banking, who tirelessly wrote columns, commissioned "Think Tank" "white papers" and supported politicians, beginning with Barry Goldwater, all with the common message that Social Security and all of its corollaries was an unworkable fraud that would fail just when it was most needed and that the only legitimate function of government was national defense and the enforcement of laws protecting personal property and the personal safety, especially of the wealthy.

Nor was this "movement" homogenous, including, for example, in the early days, groups such as the John Birch Society as well as the Club for Growth. But they made themselves important to and a part of the Nixon Administration, where Friedman's Shock Doctrine finally got employed in Chile, and where Donald Rumsfield got his start in national politics. But those who went forward to the Reagan Administration did share common goals of deregulating finance and business in general and increasing the portion of the national product that went to the top.

They did not have to publicly or privately endorse specific plans for us to so conclude.  It is merely necessary to consider if many of them could not have understood that what they were doing would have that effect, when they could see the yearly progress in that direction that their policy efforts were having. They saw and they called it good. They did not plan on producing financial crises, but Greenspan did assert that they could not really be foreseen and that the cost of cleaning up was lower than the cost of prevention. (Who believes he really believed this?) Their attitude was more one of reckless, if not contemptuous, disregard. But the goal of rolling back regulations, undermining the accomplishments of the New Deal, subverting the accomplishments of the Progressive Era and discrediting the potential of government to act in the common good were broadly shared among those in the Republican party from the center to the right fringe.

The more activist and militant they were the more explicit were these goals. This is especially true with those who were involved in lobbying under Gingrich including Jack Abramoff, Ralph E. Reed, Jr., Grover Norquist and Michael Scanlon.  Recent revelations about The Family and the Republican legislators who live in a Family residence in D.C., including Sen. John Ensign, Sen. Tom Coburn, Gov. Mark Stanford, etc. are definitely "conspiracy" material, given the secrecy of their operations, the fact that they live together when in D.C., all go to each other for personal support and appear to share a common political agenda.

In a society in which an enormous number of people are convicted each year under conspiracy law, calling someone a "conspiracy theorist" for suggesting that large groups of people work together and coordinate for common goals, some of which are arguably illegal or in subversion of basic constitutional principles is a bit ridiculous.  Even if IOKIYAR.

In face of the facts of the matter it is pathetic that progressives accept publicly getting beaten up for indulging in "conspiracy theories".  My own sense it that, especially in academia, this is a convenient excuse for avoiding potentially career damaging subjects at the cost of a functional understanding of the nature of social reality. Just another failure due to continued acceptance of failed parts of Enlightenment thought, especially about how human thought and perception operates.

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."