Lippmann’s critique left the proper state role conceptually ill-defined

Evidence

If all forms of planning were tantamount to totalitarianism, and nineteenthcentury laissezfaire was a bankrupt ideology, how could one identify an appropriate scope of intervention for the state? The distinction between collectivists and intelligent interventionists was vague at best: in critiquing the former, Lippmann appeared skeptical of virtually all forms of economic intervention; and in extolling the latter, he appeared to advocate dramatic redistributions of income and vigorous government action that paralleled many of the policies enacted in the course of the early New Deal. — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 159

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the ambiguity at the heart of ‘intelligent intervention’ as a middle position between collectivism and laissez-faire — the conceptual problem that would animate later MPS thinking.
• XREF: connects to: Lippmann attacked laissez-faire ideology while defending active government intervention — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 158