Mont Pèlerin founders rejected laissez-faire and libertarian labels as politically unviable

Evidence

The Mont Pèlerin Society was established by a set of individuals who shared a conviction that capitalism had entered a potentially decisive moment of crisis. For all their differences, they agreed that the market system deserved to be defended from the forces that threatened its continued existence. Their debates over how best to achieve this goal continued to be shaped by the predicament that had brought them together, and they marginalized those who argued that the market system should remain free of regulations as impractical extremists. Among nearly all of the society’s founding members, the term “libertarian” was either rejected or ignored. Even those who were most skeptical of government intervention recognized that the prospects of public support for a social philosophy that resembled laissezfaire remained, at best, dim. — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 306

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies that early MPS was not a laissez-faire revival project but a reformulation — the ‘libertarian’ label was avoided.
• SEED: An essay angle: how a movement’s founding self-identity as anti-purist constrained its rhetoric, versus how later generations narrated it as pure laissez-faire.
• XREF: connects to: The early Mont Pèlerin movement was far less doctrinaire than its conventional reputation suggests. — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 32; The Mont Pèlerin Society’s founding statement was deliberately vague to hold divergent members together. — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 267; Mont Pèlerin founders framed market advocacy as skepticism against rigid laissez-faire ideals — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 274 (+2 more)