British postwar academia made free-market critique incompatible with career legitimacy.

Evidence

British academic economists were as a whole broad supporters of government policy in the 1950s, during the greater part of which the Conservative Party was in power. Given that political life was configured around business and labor, the only established position from which the Conservative government’s policy could be publicly criticized was already occupied by the Labour Party. Each party of course had its shadings, from right to left. But militant criticism of state activity from any other direction would automatically place the critic on the fringes of the existing political spectrum. It was difficult to reconcile such a stance with an academic reputation in the postwar world. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 417

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the chapter history so far on how the MPS network formed — this explains the institutional disincentives that kept British economists out. — connects to: Interwar British free market economics faced contempt from mainstream figures — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 401; The postwar Keynesian consensus silenced rightwing academic criticism of planning — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 377; Think tanks slowly displaced Keynesianism with free-market doctrine in Britain — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 1108 (+1 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: Nuanced account of how political spectrum positionality shaped academic incentives in Britain — the two-party business/labor configuration structurally excluded market critics from respectable careers.

Broader Connections

• The postwar Keynesian consensus silenced rightwing academic criticism of planning #corroborates (0.82) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 377
• Think tanks slowly displaced Keynesianism with free-market doctrine in Britain #qualifies (0.75) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 1108
• Career incentives lock economists into intellectually indefensible models they know are wrong #expands (0.72) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 792