There were a few areas where your reading of history seems to differ from mine, as well as a bunch of key distinctions that I believe should have made it in a piece of this length.
First, I think the piece gives too much credit to and puts too much focus on Hayek as an intellectual architect of neoliberalism. Hayek’s work was influential, and his impact on Fisher as well, but I don’t think Hayek is treated as a blueprint for neoliberalism.
The significant focus on Hayek is coupled with a lack of focus on the key philosophical and methdological distinctions, and actual successes and failures.
Philosophical and methodological distinctions
Neoliberalism isn’t a school of economics. There were several fairly distinct schools of economics that can broadly be classified as neoliberal. The tradition that Hayek was part of was the Austrian school. The Austrian school has a vibrant community (that has flourished online) but it is a fairly small minority of economists. And it has pretty significant methodological differences with mainstream economics, mostly in terms of rejecting some of mainstream economics’ efforts at quantification. Notably, Austrians also have a different way of looking at money than monetarism. With that said, Hayek’s branch of the Austrian school has embraced many parts of mainstream economics.
And then there are the schools of economics that broadly fall under “neoclassical economics” such as the Chicago School, which uses a pretty large amount of quantification and uses price theory (inherently quantitative) as its base. Although Hayek did interact with a lot of the Chicago School and contributed somewhat to its thought, he isn’t one of its central figures: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_school_of_economics#Scholars (the last few predate Hayek). Unlike the Austrian school, the Chicago School has had a lot of success in getting mainstream recognition. The Chicago School is probably a key part of neoliberalism as people refer to the term but, with the exception of a couple people (mostly Milton Friedman) had little by way of explicit links with the intellectual activist movement to champion neoliberalism.
And then there are a bunch of other schools of thought like New Keynesianism that can also be broadly considered neoliberal (examples of New Keynesian include Greg Mankiw, former George Bush adviser) but a sort-of continuation of the old Keynesianism.
Related to these fairly distinct (and separately motivated and originated) schools of thought are the different political philosophies that get bunched as neoliberalism. Probably the most distinctive (and most minority) philosophy is modern libertarianism. This political philosophy and the associated intellectual infrastructure is what can be traced most closely to the sort of deliberate efforts you allude to (Hayek, Fisher, etc.) though a number of other key figures also show up (such as Austrian economist and radical anarcho-capitalist Murray Rothbard, explainer Walter Reed, and billionaire backers the Koch brothers). Libertarianism, which focuses on both economic and “social” freedom, has had important success and spillovers even if it hasn’t caught on as a philosophy (things like opposition to conscription, a direct success, and opposition to the War on Drugs, one that would penetrate mainstream liberal views soon). And then there are also other non-libertarian but market-friendly liberal and market-friendly conservative think tanks and institutes that have flourished in recent decades.
Overall, I would say that the growth of “neoliberalism” has involved some good initial planning by key figures but resembles a Hayekian spontaneous order more than the execution of Hayek’s central plan.
Actual successes and failures
The article makes neoliberalism appear like a huge success. Many of the leading proponents of various schools of neoliberalism take a fairly different view. For instance, when Hayek wrote “A Road to Serfdom” the non-war US federal welfare state was fairly small. Then in the 1960s welfare was expanded significantly. In the 1970s there were huge amounts of additional regulation that (depending on the school) could be treated as big negatives. Reaganism dialed back some of the changes, but without fundamentally changing them, just dialing them down in quantity. In the United States, according to various measures, economic freedom has been flat or declined somewhat rather than moving steadily toward more freedom. (Globally, economic freedom measured by various indices has increased mostly as communist regimes have ended and some big economies like China and India moved in a pro-market direction).
Your post is yeoman’s work and much appreciated.
There were a few areas where your reading of history seems to differ from mine, as well as a bunch of key distinctions that I believe should have made it in a piece of this length.
First, I think the piece gives too much credit to and puts too much focus on Hayek as an intellectual architect of neoliberalism. Hayek’s work was influential, and his impact on Fisher as well, but I don’t think Hayek is treated as a blueprint for neoliberalism.
The significant focus on Hayek is coupled with a lack of focus on the key philosophical and methdological distinctions, and actual successes and failures.
Philosophical and methodological distinctions
Neoliberalism isn’t a school of economics. There were several fairly distinct schools of economics that can broadly be classified as neoliberal. The tradition that Hayek was part of was the Austrian school. The Austrian school has a vibrant community (that has flourished online) but it is a fairly small minority of economists. And it has pretty significant methodological differences with mainstream economics, mostly in terms of rejecting some of mainstream economics’ efforts at quantification. Notably, Austrians also have a different way of looking at money than monetarism. With that said, Hayek’s branch of the Austrian school has embraced many parts of mainstream economics.
And then there are the schools of economics that broadly fall under “neoclassical economics” such as the Chicago School, which uses a pretty large amount of quantification and uses price theory (inherently quantitative) as its base. Although Hayek did interact with a lot of the Chicago School and contributed somewhat to its thought, he isn’t one of its central figures: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_school_of_economics#Scholars (the last few predate Hayek). Unlike the Austrian school, the Chicago School has had a lot of success in getting mainstream recognition. The Chicago School is probably a key part of neoliberalism as people refer to the term but, with the exception of a couple people (mostly Milton Friedman) had little by way of explicit links with the intellectual activist movement to champion neoliberalism.
And then there are a bunch of other schools of thought like New Keynesianism that can also be broadly considered neoliberal (examples of New Keynesian include Greg Mankiw, former George Bush adviser) but a sort-of continuation of the old Keynesianism.
Related to these fairly distinct (and separately motivated and originated) schools of thought are the different political philosophies that get bunched as neoliberalism. Probably the most distinctive (and most minority) philosophy is modern libertarianism. This political philosophy and the associated intellectual infrastructure is what can be traced most closely to the sort of deliberate efforts you allude to (Hayek, Fisher, etc.) though a number of other key figures also show up (such as Austrian economist and radical anarcho-capitalist Murray Rothbard, explainer Walter Reed, and billionaire backers the Koch brothers). Libertarianism, which focuses on both economic and “social” freedom, has had important success and spillovers even if it hasn’t caught on as a philosophy (things like opposition to conscription, a direct success, and opposition to the War on Drugs, one that would penetrate mainstream liberal views soon). And then there are also other non-libertarian but market-friendly liberal and market-friendly conservative think tanks and institutes that have flourished in recent decades.
Overall, I would say that the growth of “neoliberalism” has involved some good initial planning by key figures but resembles a Hayekian spontaneous order more than the execution of Hayek’s central plan.
Actual successes and failures
The article makes neoliberalism appear like a huge success. Many of the leading proponents of various schools of neoliberalism take a fairly different view. For instance, when Hayek wrote “A Road to Serfdom” the non-war US federal welfare state was fairly small. Then in the 1960s welfare was expanded significantly. In the 1970s there were huge amounts of additional regulation that (depending on the school) could be treated as big negatives. Reaganism dialed back some of the changes, but without fundamentally changing them, just dialing them down in quantity. In the United States, according to various measures, economic freedom has been flat or declined somewhat rather than moving steadily toward more freedom. (Globally, economic freedom measured by various indices has increased mostly as communist regimes have ended and some big economies like China and India moved in a pro-market direction).