One's perception of one's own power or self-efficacy. People who feel powerless seem to be more prone toward conspiracy theories.
This is just a casual observation. — baker

This is true. Having conceptualized a few conspiracy theories, myself, I can say that they were largely born out of an incapacity to cope with precarity in my life. Being pathologically afraid of becoming homeless made me pathologically afraid of the intelligence community, mafias, and the far-Right by way of transference. It's not that there is nothing to fear; it's just that the fear becomes pathological. It's kind of an extraordinary experience. You compulsively accumulate information as an addictive habit and attempt to draw an elaborate network of influence. They rely on a kind of persecutory delusion. I believed in them because I believed that I had no future. You'd be surprised as just how bizarre some of them can become. I began with connections that I had made between the CIA and Propaganda Due and, at one point, had claimed that Adolf Hitler was the bastard child of Rudolf I of Austria and Stephanie of Belgium, Felix Yusupov had shot Rasputin, who was supposed to be an early American intelligence officer, and orchestrated the Bolshevik coup, thereby leaving both the Holocaust and the Great Terror as punishment for the decline of the aristocracy on the part of British intelligence. I even apologized to them for this after the fact.

So, we can see why people would be inclined to accept a “conspiracy theory” based on incontrovertible facts. What is less clear is what motivates others to deny not only the theory but the established facts themselves. In many cases, even mentioning the fact that the CIA was founded by a powerful business group can trigger a negative reaction of vehement (and totally unfounded) denial. — Apollodorus

I just think that you are mistaken to suggest that Rockefeller's empire was the prime mover of the CIA at its inception. He used his network of influence to have a place there, but that's it. It's all just networks of influence. I, further, just wanted to put forth my theory that what goes wrong in the intelligence community, or any form of network-power, has more to do with control than it does with wealth. The Gestapo didn't kill upwards of, I think, 18 million people over capital. The same could be said for the former Soviet Union.

In 1952 Dulles was officially appointed as head of the CIA. — Apollodorus

John J McCloy (of the Rockefeller law firm Milbank, Tweed & Hope) Stimson’s Assistant Secretary, trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation, president of the World Bank, and US High Commissioner for Germany. — Apollodorus

Great summary, thanks much. Dulles and McCloy of course were also members of the Warren commission. Dulles had been fired by JFK after the Bay of Pigs, and hated JFK long before that. So his appointment to the commission was inexplicable. His role was mainly to hide the involvement of the intelligence community's connections to Oswald (full disclosure, these connections are still not proven) and their partnership with the Mafia to kill Castro (absolutely proven and well known).

Most of what we know about the workings of our government is a carefully curated myth, yet so many these days take government pronouncements at face value. Just yesterday Fauci finally admitted that the lab leak hypothesis for covid may be true. This is after a year of MSM smearing of that suggestion as a "conspiracy theory."

ps -- Almost forgot to mention these hot-off-the-presses nuggets. Story came out yesterday that three workers at the Wuhan bioweapons lab got sick in late 2019. And this morning the indefatigable Jen Psaki said we have no evidence it's true. Keep spinning, Jen.

And Maggie Haberman of the NYT said that the reason the MSM colluded to suppress all dissident speculation about the origin of covid was ... It's Trump's fault!! I am not making this up.

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/05/24/nyts-haberman-blames-trump-admin-for-media-discrediting-theories-of-covid-19-origins-made-this-instantly-political/

I just think that you are mistaken to suggest that Rockefeller's empire was the prime mover of the CIA at its inception. He used his network of influence to have a place there, but that's it. It's all just networks of influence. — thewonder

As I said before, if we ignore the evidence, deny the facts, and read the wrong books, we won’t get anywhere.

On the other hand, if we want to get to the bottom of a conspiracy theory, or any theory, we ask our teacher at uni or go to the library and look at solid academic publications that are properly researched and sourced.

For the period in question, start with Rulers of America by Rochester to familiarize yourself with the historical background and with the Rockefellers' modus operandi.

Men Who Govern: a biographical profile of Federal political executives, by D. T. Stanley of Brookings Institution shows that the vast majority of people in the US Administration come from a business background or are lawyers representing business interests.

Also read history professors specializing in political history:

T. Paterson, “The Economic Cold War”.

G. Kolko, The Roots of American Foreign Policy, and many others.

I think the rational approach would be to start with the facts. And one of the most fundamental, established and undeniable facts is that there are close links between government and business in most if not all countries on this planet.

It may be argued that no one forces governments to hire business people, and that they do it because it makes it easier to promote economic policies in the business community and through the business community in the wider society.

However, the fact remains that once those business people and lawyers representing business interests have been hired and are sitting in the cabinet or wider administration, they literally make domestic and foreign policy.

As an example, Felix Frankfurter and Grenville Clark advised F. D. Roosevelt to hire Henry L. Stimson as Secretary of War.

Stimson was a member of Standard Oil representatives Root & Clark and had been hired as Secretary of State by Hoover in 1931 before going back to law. In 1940 he was hired by Roosevelt and in turn he hired friends and associates like Robert P. Patterson, John J. McCloy, Robert A. Lovett, Harvey H. Bundy.

Frankfurter: Harvard Law School, former assistant to Stimson.
Clark: Frankfurter's classmate at Harvard, partner and co-founder Root & Clark.

Patterson: Harvard law, partner at Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler.
McCloy: Harvard law, Rockefeller lawyer, Milbank, Tweed & Hope.
Lovett: Harvard law and business admin, partner Brown Brothers Harriman.
Bundy: Harvard law, partner Putnam, Putnam & Bell.

Stimson and his team ran the War Department all through the war. They became the key architects of American national security policy during the Cold War. They were the managers and technicians of that policy and they built the structures through which that policy was implemented, the intellectual concepts, the rhetoric, the alliances, the military and intelligence networks, etc.

Similarly, James V. Forestall, of Dillon, Read & Co., Secretary of the Navy and the first Secretary of Defence, recruited his own team of Dillon, Read colleagues and associates.

Edit. Dillon, Read were stoke brokers with close links to the petroleum industry and acting for the Rockefellers

Stimson, Forestall, Dean Acheson, William Clayton, Averell Harriman, and many other business representatives were literally making government policy in line with the agenda of the business community. The people in the street who vote for a particular president or party are never consulted on policy which is left in the hands of self-interested groups. This renders voting pretty much pointless because no matter what party or president is in charge, the country is taken in the direction pointed by wealth and power.

Maybe those who deny the facts do so because there are too many crazy conspiracy theories around. But from your statements it looks like some people accept all kinds of nonsensical stories but reject the facts acknowledged by historians and corroborated by the evidence. This makes the whole issue even more puzzling.