Lippmann attacked laissez-faire ideology while defending active government intervention

Evidence

Lippmann railed against “Adam Smith fundamentalism,” which he identifi ed as a product of the distortionary excesses of the fi rst half of the nineteenth century and “a philosophy of neglect and refusal to proceed with social adaptation.” As Henry Steele Commager observed a de cade later, the book elaborates a perspective that is “closer to Huxley than to Spencer, to Ward than to Sumner,” and “its most deadly attack was leveled not against government but against that perversion of classical economics which masqueraded as liberalism.” — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 158

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader history of the Mont Pèlerin milieu — Lippmann’s The Good Society as a forerunner text that MPS figures both built on and diverged from. — connects to: Lippmann sought a positive defense of liberty compatible with macroeconomic control — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 153; Right-wing economists defended nineteenth-century laissez-faire against Lippmann’s attack — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 158; Lippmann’s critique left the proper state role conceptually ill-defined — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 159

Broader Connections

• Right-wing economists defended nineteenth-century laissez-faire against Lippmann’s attack #responds-to (0.85) — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 158
• Lippmann’s critique left the proper state role conceptually ill-defined #qualifies (0.80) — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 159