Early liberals shared an unresolved ambivalence about the state that seeded austerity
Evidence
The relevance of these three early liberals for austerity thinking is a disposition they share that I term the can’t live with it, can’t live without it, don’t want to pay for it problem of the state in liberal thought. — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 269
Categorization
- DEFINE: Introduces Blyth’s core framing concept for the liberal attitude toward the state.
- XREF: This tension echoes the state/market dichotomy Mattei critiques; useful as an intellectual-history compansion to Mattei’s political-economy account. — connects to: Early neoliberals rejected laissez-faire and wanted strong state action; Neoliberalism broke sharply with prewar classical liberalism rather than continuing it — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 778; Austerity spans party lines and is often wielded by nominally left governments (+3 more)
Broader Connections
- Early neoliberals rejected laissez-faire and wanted strong state action
#responds-to(0.80) - Neoliberalism broke sharply with prewar classical liberalism rather than continuing it
#expands(0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 778 - Early neoliberals explicitly distanced themselves from classical laissez-faire doctrine
#expands(0.80) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 117 - Classical liberals lacked the disposition to organize political movements for liberty
#expands(0.75) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 774 - Early neoliberal development thought prescribed conservative reform and was not yet confident.
#expands(0.75) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1292 - Austerity spans party lines and is often wielded by nominally left governments
#responds-to(0.72)