French Social Catholicism and left-wing neoliberalism shared an intellectual proximity

Evidence

The participants in the Semaines Sociales were delighted by the coexistence of capitalism and socialism in France, a position that offered the double advantage of being in conformity with the papal encyclicals and of providing a bulwark against communism. Whereas neoliberalism was officially criticized within Social Catholic circles, this criticism should not obscure the fact that an intellectual proximity existed between the right wing of Social Catholicism and the left wing of neoliberalism. Intransigent liberals still rejected the role Social Catholics granted to the state. André Piettre and Jacques Rueff attempted to find a common ground between neoliberals and Social Catholics, viewing them as “men of goodwill whom … vain doctrinal oppositions divided.” Some economists belonged to these two parallel universes; among these economists was Gaston Leduc, who became president of the Mont Pèlerin Society in 1974. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 298

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader Mont Pèlerin Society historiography and to similar interpenetration between Christian democracy and capitalism in West Germany, e.g. the Ordo-liberal/Christian-Democrat overlap. — connects to: Religious and political heterogeneity prevented French neoliberals from building a unified network — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 294; the MOC “The Republic’s Impossible Embrace: How Universalism Turned Algeria from the Future of France into Its Undoing”
• QUESTION: How exactly did Gaston Leduc, who moved between Social Catholic and Mont Pèlerin circles, carry influence between the two universes?
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 298