The Road from Mont Pèlerin

The Making of the Neoliberal Thought Collective, With a New Preface

Philip Mirowski,Dieter Plehwe

• Editorial: Harvard University Press
• Año: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780674495135
• Categoría: Philosophy
• Categoría: Political Philosophy

Although modern neoliberalism was born at the "Colloque Walter Lippmann" in 1938, it only came into its own with the founding of the Mont Pèlerin Society, a partisan "thought collective, " in Vevey, Switzerland, in 1947. Its original membership was made up of transnational economists and intellectuals, including Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, George Stigler, Karl Popper, Michael Polanyi, and Luigi Einaudi. From this small beginning, their ideas spread throughout the world, fostering, among other things, the political platforms of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan and the Washington Consensus. The Road from Mont Pèlerin presents the key debates and conflicts that occurred among neoliberal scholars and their political and corporate allies regarding trade unions, development economics, antitrust policies, and the influence of philanthropy. The book captures the depth and complexity of the neoliberal "thought collective" while examining the numerous ways that neoliberal discourse has come to shape the global economy." The Road from Mont Pèlerin is indispensable for anyone wishing to gain an understanding of neoliberalism, whether as an end in itself or as a means for constructing alternative, non-neoliberal futures."
—Daniel Kinderman, Critical Policy Studies "If you work on post-war history of economics, there is almost no reason not to read this book."
—Ross B. Emmett, Journal of the History of Economic Thought

PART ONE

Origins of National Traditions

1

French Neoliberalism and Its Divisions

From the Colloque Walter Lippmann to the Fifth Republic

FRANÇOIS DENORD

The emergence of neoliberalism as an intellectual network is partly due to a French initiative. Organized by the philosopher Louis Rougier in 1938, the Colloque Walter Lippmann—an international congress held in Paris, consisting of twenty-six businessmen, top civil servants, and economists from several countries—contributed to the rise of this intellectual agenda. It also led to the creation of a nonprofit organization, the Centre international d’études pour la rénovation du libéralisme (CIRL), which attracted members of the ruling elite seeking an answer to “the crisis of capitalism.” Established against advancing notions of the planned economy and collectivism, the CIRL disappeared when France entered World War II. Nevertheless, this institution provided the model for the Mont Pèlerin Society (MPS), which Friedrich Hayek and Wilhelm Röpke created in 1947.

Although a French neoliberal tradition has existed since the 1930s, its history is not very well known. This chapter compares the intellectual configurations of two eras (the 1930s and the 1950s–1960s) and emphasizes the transformations that affected economists and businessmen after World War II in order to explain the divisions of French neoliberalism. Whereas in the 1930s this set of ideas could find an audience beyond traditional liberal circles (attracting, for instance, trade-union leaders), this became impossible in the context of the Cold War. Neoliberalism was defended in the 1930s by some of the most renowned economists and businessmen, but its advocates formed only a minority within the intellectual field of the 1960s: French neoliberalism had become radicalized in opposition to the expansion of the welfare state. However, the conceptions traditionally associated with French neoliberalism subsequently spread into other groups. By the time French liberalism enjoyed a revival in the 1970s and 1980s, neoliberalism had already inspired governmental practice but was condemned by new neoliberals for its supposed collusion with social democracy.

The Legacy of the 1930s

Neoliberalism appeared in France at the end of the 1930s. Its development was facilitated by (1) the contestation of the liberal creed in the field of public policy (a consequence of World War I and of the Great Depression); and (2) the economic and political defeat of the Front Populaire, a left-wing government coalition that had failed to radically transform France’s economic structures. At the beginning of 1938, in the view of the elites both classical liberalism and socialist planning had been discredited. In this context, a discourse seeking to reconcile not only opponents to the 1936 experiment but disillusioned socialists as well could find support. Faced with growing state intervention and the development of economic ideas that sought to enforce this tendency, neoliberalism seemed to offer an alternative. It promised the building of a liberal state protecting free enterprise and free competition and the retreat of the state away from the economy.

The preeminent advocate of a neoliberal solution to the crisis was Louis Rougier (1889–1982), a professor at the University of Besançon. As a philosopher, he occupied a marginal position in academia owing to his opposition to Bergsonism and rationalism.¹ As a political activist, he supported center-right leaders both against radicalism and communism, and against monarchism and fascism. As the promoter of an intellectual renewal of economic liberalism that would precede and sustain its political rebirth,² Rougier had developed contacts with businessmen and economists in France and in other countries (in particular in Austria and Switzerland). As a result of his involvement in different networks, he became associated with the foundation of a publishing house, La Librairie de Médicis (1937), and with convening an international conference around the French translation of Lippmann’s The Good Society.³

The organization of the Colloque Walter Lippmann was relatively spontaneous. Learning of the imminent arrival of the eminent American journalist in France, Louis Rougier initiated preparations at the end of May 1938. Initially, he only wanted to arrange a dinner to celebrate the author of the Good Society. To some colleagues, like the Swiss William Rappard, however, it seemed a curious dinner. Louis Rougier had promised a gathering of renowned intellectuals. Around Walter Lippmann were to be seated his French preface writer, André Maurois, the economists Bernard Lavergne and Jacques Rueff, one of the trustees of the Rockefeller Foundation, Tracy B. Kittredge, as well as the French specialist in political science, André Siegfried.⁴ Rougier did not first propose the list of guests to Lippmann himself. Instead, Rougier simply mentioned André Maurois and some “colleagues from the Law Faculty,” but added the names of Paul Baudouin, the director of the Banque d’Indochine, and Marcel Bourgeois, “the sponsor of the Editions of Médicis.”⁵ Both Maurois and Baudouin had financed fascist movements such as the Parti Populaire Français (PPF) of Jacques Doriot. Lippmann, who had met Louis Rougier only once before—in Geneva with Ludwig von Mises, William Rappard, and Wilhelm Röpke—became suspicious.⁶ Although Friedrich Hayek had depicted his French interlocutor as “a distinguished philosopher,” “very respected for his work on the epistemological problems,”⁷ Hayek understood that the intellectual discussions could have been considered of secondary importance. In a letter addressed to William Rappard, Louis Rougier did not hide its objective: to lead “an international crusade in favor of constructive liberalism.”⁸ Perhaps because Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises took part in the Colloque, Walter Lippmann let himself be convinced to participate in “a restricted and closed conference, to discuss the main thesis of [his book].” This conference was to be only a general rehearsal for “an international Congress in 1939 on the same subjects.”⁹ As it turned out, this congress never took place, even if two conferences actually held around this time extended the efforts of the summer of 1938: one devoted to the “economic, political and spiritual status of tomorrow’s Europe” in July 1939; and the other focused on “the economic conditions of a future federation of England and France” in April 1940.¹⁰

All the participants in the Colloque Lippmann were hand-picked. The Marxist theorist Rudolf Hilferding and the former socialist minister Charles Spinasse, who wished to attend the discussion, were nimbly excluded because they “were [sic] politicians.”¹¹ The international forum gathered some of the most influential French corporate managers (Auguste Detoeuf, Louis Marlio, Ernest Mercier), senior civil servants (Jacques Rueff, Roger Auboin), and intellectuals (Raymond Aron) as well as members of a rising new generation of liberal economists (Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Wilhelm Röpke, etc.).¹² In retrospect, the participants in the Colloque Lippmann would appear to have constituted a prestigious conclave: its members would later become a Nobel Prize winner in economics (Friedrich Hayek), the general secretary of the Organization for European Economic Co-Operation (Robert Marjolin), the architects of the German social market economy (Wilhelm Röpke, Alexander Rüstow), the director of the Bank for International Settlements (Roger Auboin), the financial adviser of General Charles de Gaulle (Jacques Rueff), the power behind Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars project (Stephan Possony), and so on.

The congress attendees disagreed on many points: Is freedom an end in itself (a position defended by Etienne Mantoux and Louis Rougier) or merely a means (espoused by Louis Baudin, Robert Marjolin)? Is liberalism only the rigorous application of the laws of economics (Louis Marlio) or an ideology (Robert Marjolin)? Does liberalism have to take into account the provision of social security (Louis Rougier, Walter Lippmann) or not (Jacques Rueff)? Clear oppositions surfaced several times. With regard to the question of industrial concentration, it was criticized by the economists, whereas the industrialists defended the trusts. Confronting the problem of money, Jacques Rueff or Louis Baudin did not want to see it “directed,” whereas Walter Lippmann preached its management and condemned the legal statute of companies. Thus, the backers of the Colloque Lippmann were not of one mind along many dimensions.

Neoliberalism was not a unified phenomenon. Even the name of the doctrine was a problem: Louis Baudin preferred “individualism,” Louis Rougier “positive liberalism,” while Jacques Rueff favored “left-wing liberalism.” The term neoliberalism became prevalent only after the Colloque for strategic reasons: “the words ‘neo’ and ‘renovation,’ declared Louis Marlio, . . . “distinguish us from several authors of whom we did not accept all the practical theories and all objections [against] interventions which are accepted by most of us like perfectly normal things. For those who know it, . . . the word ‘neo’ is perhaps not essential, but for those who do not know it, it is totally useful.”¹³ To be “neoliberal” was supposed to imply the recognition that “laissez-faire” economics was not enough and that, in the name of liberalism, a modern economic policy was needed.

Consequently, several commentators could point to the existence of two groups within the Colloque. On one side were “those for which neoliberalism was fundamentally different, in its spirit and its program of traditional liberalism”¹⁴ (these included Louis Rougier, Auguste Detoeuf, Louis Marlio, Wilhelm Röpke, and Alexandre Rüstow), and on the other side were defenders of the “old liberalism” headed by Louis Baudin, Jacques Rueff, and the Austrian School (Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises). Some of the participants directly grappled with this division. Alexander Rüstow went straight to the point: “it is undeniable that here, in our circle, two different points of view are represented. Those who do not find anything essential to be criticized or to change with traditional liberalism. . . . We, the others, who are seeking the responsibility for the decline of liberalism in liberalism itself; and consequently, are seeking the solution in a fundamental renewal of liberalism.”¹⁵ Publicly, Rüstow conformed to the rules of academic propriety, but privately, he confessed to Wilhelm Röpke what he thought of Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises: their place was in the museum, in the formalin, Rüstow said.¹⁶ It was people of their ilk who were responsible for the great crisis of market legitimacy of the twentieth century. Some of the conflicts that were to mark the history of neoliberalism in the later years began to become manifest: at the Colloque between “German ordoliberalism” and radical libertarianism; between the acceptance of interventionism and its rejection; between the partisans of a voluntarist liberal policy and those nostalgic for laissez-faire.

Nevertheless, this international meeting became a landmark in the history of liberalism. For the first time, neoliberalism was defined by a set of postulates that constituted an agenda: the use of the price mechanism as the best way to obtain the maximal satisfaction of human expectations; the responsibility of the state for instituting a juridical framework adjusted to the order defined by the market; the possibility for the state to follow goals other than short-term expedients and to further them by levying taxes; the acceptance of state intervention if it does not favor any particular group and seeks to act upon the causes of the economic difficulties. “To be [neo]liberal, said Louis Rougier, doesn’t mean to be a ‘Manchesterian’ who leaves the cars circulating in all directions, if such is their will, which can only result in traffic jams and incessant accidents; it doesn’t mean to be a ‘Planist’ who gives every car its exit time and its route; it means to impose a highway code while admitting that it is not necessary to be the same at the time of the accelerated...