MPS founders disagreed sharply over whether unions were inherently harmful.

Evidence

Also, in 1956, Hayek and Wilhelm Röpke, both MPS founding members, strongly diverged on the role of unions at the Berlin meeting. As reported by a Swiss journalist and MPS member, Ernst Bieri (Neue Zürcher Zeitung), Röpke was unconvinced by Hayek’s severe condemnation of unions. To Röpke, they proved their usefulness in the defense of free economy as the Swiss case demonstrated. Condemnation of unions per se was then an absurdity (Bieri 1956). — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1004

Categorization

• XREF: Complicates the common image of a monolithic anti-union neoliberal consensus; aligns with historiographical work on ordoliberal vs. Austrian divergences within the MPS. — connects to: Early MPS members feared capitalism eroded rural life and social bonds — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 293; Some MPS founders rejected abolishing strikes as antidemocratic — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 976; Early ordoliberal sympathy for unions disappeared from later MPS views — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 977