Critics saw Lippmann’s rightward turn as corruption by soft association rather than sale

Evidence

The book, John Dewey wrote in Common Sense, gives “encouragement and practical support to reactionaries,” in part by identifying “every form of socialism and collectivism with state or governmental socialism.” Lewis Mumford complained of Lippmann’s “strange collectivist heresy hunt,” in which he posited the only social options as a free economy and a militarized collectivism. And Charles Merriam expressed his consternation about “an attempt to state a theory and formulate a practice of neoliberalism” that demonstrated “illiberalism and intolerance toward those who differ from the new credo.” Lippmann’s refusal to accept the legitimacy of gradations of planning lent a potent sense of urgency to his rhetoric, which in turn troubled those who did not share his manifest belief in the contemporary dangers of nuance. — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 157 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Lippmann’s turn to free-market ideas emerged from a progressive, interventionist career — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 151; Contemporary critics saw Lippmann’s stark binary as reactionary heresy-hunting — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 157

Related

• Contemporary critics saw Lippmann’s stark binary as reactionary heresy-hunting (similarity 0.94)
• Prominent intellectuals rejected Lippmann’s new ‘neoliberalism’ as illiberal and intolerant (similarity 0.85)
• Lippmann sought a positive defense of liberty compatible with macroeconomic control (similarity 0.82)
• Lippmann’s turn to free-market ideas emerged from a progressive, interventionist career (similarity 0.81)
• Lippmann’s slope-to-dictatorship framing troubled even sympathetic contemporaries by its absolutism (similarity 0.81)
• Lippmann’s critique left the proper state role conceptually ill-defined (similarity 0.81)
• Lippmann attacked laissez-faire ideology while defending active government intervention (similarity 0.79)
• Chicago economists criticized Lippmann from both pro- and anti-state directions simultaneously. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Contemporary critics saw Lippmann’s stark binary as reactionary heresy-hunting #corroborates (0.78) — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 157