Early MPS members rejected industrial peace as a wage-distorting goal

Evidence

Machlup retorted by describing as “romantic” Rappard’s vision of responsible union leaders restraining their wage increases simply because somebody had taken the time to educate them (Graham 1947, 215). Machlup was also troubled by those who placed their faith in industrial peace: “Industrial peace is something we should be afraid of, as it can only be bought at the cost of further distortion of the wage structure. I am most afraid of Professor Iversen’s proposal for wage determination by State, and consider it to be the end of democratic government” (Graham 1947, 215). — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 969

Categorization

• SEED: An essay angle: the counterintuitive claim among founding neoliberals that ‘industrial peace’ itself is dangerous because it prevents wage-market correction — a sharp reversal of typical twentieth-century labor assumptions.
• XREF: connects to: Interwar workers rejected the commodification of their labor outright. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 377; The MPS nearly collapsed over a split between political action and long-term intellectual goals — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1359