Early neoliberals proposed abolishing core labor law to curb union power.

Evidence

Proposals to counteract these deleterious consequences were deemed necessary, and Lewis proceeded to explore some of them. He suggested a vast legal reform program to reduce labor monopoly in order “to purge the law of its pro-monopoly features” (Lewis 1958, 6). He called for the elimination of the Norris-LaGuardia Act, the National Labor Relations Act (which provided the legal framework of the National Labor Relations Board), and the legislation, including minimum wage laws, designed to protect or promote labor monopoly. But even that draconian proposal did not seem sufficient to Lewis, who then proposed what he called a “limitist approach” in unionism matters: to prohibit all large-scale concerted action among employers and employees (Lewis 1958, 7). His proposals also encompassed intervention in the organization of unions and prohibition of membership in the union as a condition of employment at the plant level. All of these proposals should be considered as the reorientation of existing structures toward competitive unionism and, eventually, a freely competitive labor market. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 975

Categorization

• XREF: Shows the intellectual lineage of later right-to-work and union-restriction policy — relevant to the reader’s study of how the neoliberal network’s ideas became policy. — connects to: Neoliberal union critique reframed labor organization as monopoly power backed by coercion. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 971; Neoliberal ideas reframed anti-union business positions as good judgment rather than reactionary politics — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1474; Hayek framed unions as distortions of spontaneous order requiring legal disenfranchisement — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 978 (+4 more)
• QUESTION: How much did Lewis’s ‘limitist approach’ actually influence later US labor legislation versus remaining a fringe academic proposal?

Broader Connections

• Neoliberal ideas reframed anti-union business positions as good judgment rather than reactionary politics #corroborates (0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1474
• Hayek framed unions as distortions of spontaneous order requiring legal disenfranchisement #expands (0.75) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 978
• Neoliberals favored friendly unions but strictly limited their power over investment decisions #qualifies (0.75) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 965
• Early neoliberals rejected laissez-faire and wanted strong state action #qualifies (0.70)