In the 1930s pro-business thinkers themselves rejected free markets and laissez-faire.

Evidence

Resolutely pro-business, their proposal was also fiercely anti-free-market, testifying to how unpopular laissez-faire had become with large sections of the business world itself. Not unlike the rhetoric of the New Deal, “rational capitalism,” “orderly economy,” and “scientific planning” were all terms used in contraposition to the “evils of competition” or the “chaos of overproduction.” — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 66

Categorization

• SEED: The business-world’s own hostility to laissez-faire in the 1930s is a useful angle for fracturing the caricature that capitalists have always favored free markets.
• XREF: connects to: The early 1930s radicalized governments and isolated free-market economists. — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 41; Pre-1930s market advocates held no coherent shared doctrine — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 46; Economic planning was mainstream middle opinion in the 1930s, not a fringe radical idea. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 65 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Early neoliberalism rejected laissez-faire in favor of a state-built competitive order. #expands (0.90) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 365
• Early conservative intellectuals felt isolated from business, which they believed embraced New Deal liberalism #corroborates (0.72) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1438