Early neoliberals were mainstream in 1939 but marginal by 1945

Evidence

A number of early neoliberals who participated at the WLC continued their careers within global elite networks. Rueff became the first director of UNESCO’s International Council for Philosophy and Humanistic Studies. Marjolin became the first director of the OEEC. Auboin continued as general director of the BIS until 1958. Yet new questions arise. For if neoliberalism was already deeply entrenched in global governance networks, why was there a need for the MPS in the first place? One answer is that the embedding enacted with the postwar reconstruction, the Bretton Woods institutions, the UN, and the early European integration process was not the kind of embedded liberalism early neoliberals wholeheartedly supported. While their ideas were mainstream in the late 1930s, they were marginal by 1945. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 405

Categorization

• XREF: This is the key contrarian point against the caricature of an unbroken neoliberal ascendancy — connects to Quinn Slobodian’s ‘Globalists’ thesis about embedded liberalism and the split. — connects to: Neoliberal ideas were displaced by Keynesianism only briefly — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 157; Neoliberalism was born in part as an emergency response to the 1938 crisis atmosphere. — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 182; Postwar economics expansion made neoliberalism appear outdated and marginal. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 291 (+3 more)
• QUESTION: Why exactly did unembedded-liberal ideas collapse between the late 1930s and 1945? The mechanism (war, Keynesian ascendancy) is asserted but not fully unpacked — worth chasing the specific channels.

Broader Connections

• Postwar economics expansion made neoliberalism appear outdated and marginal. #corroborates (0.85) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 291
• World War II scattered early neoliberal organizers and recast their enemy as socialist planning #expands (0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 111
• Neoliberalism emerged across the mid-twentieth century, not as a 1980s rebellion #qualifies (0.75) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 86