German neoliberal economists shaped policy from the republic’s founding through the 1980s turn

Evidence

Building on this twofold theoretical and methodological basis, the chapter showed that economists organized in a German neoliberal thought collective had a formative impact on the course of German economic policies. Beginning with the foundation of the Federal Republic in the late 1940s, and later during the “monetarist turn” of the Bundesbank in the 1970s and the “neoliberal turn” in economic politics in the early 1980s, economists connected to the infrastructures of German neoliberalism had key positions which allowed them to influence economic policies. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 654

Categorization

• XREF: The Bundesbank ‘monetarist turn’ and the 1980s ‘neoliberal turn’ connect to the broader history of monetarism and austerity in other chapters of this volume and to readers’ map of ordoliberalism vs. other neoliberal strands. — connects to: Expansionary-austerity theory traces directly to the 1981 German Council of Economic Advisors — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 456; Neoliberalism’s 1980s breakthrough rested on decades of prior institutional groundwork — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 128; Neoliberal economists dominated German economic policy influence from 1945 to 1995. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 44 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Recent Anglo-Saxon neoliberal ideas echo earlier German ordoliberal thought #expands (0.75) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 153