Early MPS development scholarship was plural, not purely Misesian

Evidence

A critical study of the varieties of neoliberalism present within and around the Mont Pèlerin Society, as evidenced by the speakers and contributions to the Beauvallon and subsequent general meetings, is crucial, however, to understand that earlier MPS scholarship in development did not conform to the particular Mises wing of neoliberalism. Nor was later “neoclassical economic thinking” just “diluted” by absorbing parts of the wisdom generated by structuralist and heterodox thinkers of the left who figured prominently in the field of development economics during much of the post–World War II history of development economics. The development discourse within the Mont Pèlerin Society provides ample evidence of a wide range of opinions within the neoliberal group and sheds light on the historical, institutional, sociological, and anthropological economic traditions of the right that are extremely important to an understanding of certain transformations of neoclassical economics (e.g., with regard to the understanding of competition, labor, knowledge, the law and the state, and dynamics of development and change in general). There exists ample evidence (presented later in this chapter) for the great struggle involved in framing a new perspective based on a fairly clear and sufficiently defined neoliberal worldview. Ludwig von Mises probably did not anticipate that he would open a Pandora’s Box when prompting the topic on the agenda. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1274

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to standard historiography of neoliberalism as a homogeneous Mises-Hayek monolith; this passage points toward internal diversity. — connects to: Competing schools within the MPS hold irreconcilable definitions of the market — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 149
• QUESTION: The claim that right-wing institutional/historical traditions shaped neoclassical economics transformations (competition, knowledge, law, state) is worth chasing — which specific right-wing traditions does the chapter name later?