Director’s antitrust position and its shift marked a key departure from klassical liberalism
Evidence
Less than five years after the FMS began, Director’s 1946 speculation about the power of competition—that is, “monopoly tends to disappear and competition to revive even where once dormant”—became for the Chicago School an assertion of fact—that is, competition undermines all forms of monopoly. This marked a crucial watershed in the emergence of neoliberalism at Chicago and a crucial departure from ordoliberalism. Furthermore, in 1951, Director maintained—despite his 1947 claims at the MPS meeting that corporate power needed to be curtailed to foster a competitive order—that concentrated industries, with a full complement of large corporations, tended to be competitive. Unlike Simons and ordoliberals, he claimed that corporations—even big, behemoth corporations—approximated the impersonal ideal of the market. This change in attitude toward large corporations and concentrated industries marked another salient departure from classical liberalism. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1114
Categorization
- XREF: The Chicago School’s embrace of big corporations contrasts with the ordoliberal tradition being traced elsewhere in this book; connects to the general story of how three liberal varieties diverged. — connects to: Director’s revised liberalism prescribed a state role in creating competition. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1090; Director in 1946 still treated monopoly as politically objectionable — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1100; Director held that market monopoly power does not spill across separate markets — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1111 (+3 more)
Broader Connections
- Neoliberal ideology narrowed antitrust enforcement to consumer prices alone
#expands(0.85) — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, 461 - Neoliberalism inverted classical liberalism by defending monopoly and corporate power
#qualifies(0.85) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 175 - Neoliberalism reversed classical liberalism’s suspicion of monopoly and corporate power.
#corroborates(0.85) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 2133