Neoliberal development thought began decades before its late-1970s influence.

Evidence

Although dedicated efforts to address development issues from a neoliberal perspective were developed in the early 1950s, their impact was not widely noticed until the late 1970s, and not before the 1980s did neoliberal expertise attain the status of authoritative development knowledge. At this point, worried members of the development community in the field first observed, and critically examined, a contemporary “neoliberal counter-revolution” (Toye 1993). … The constitution of a powerful neoliberal cadre in development economics and politics several decades earlier remains overlooked. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1264

Categorization

• SEED: Article angle: the ‘long prehistory’ of the neoliberal counterrevolution — the decades of quiet cadre-building before Thatcher and Reagan gave it purchase.
• XREF: connects to: Conservative foundations funded unorthodox ideas decades before the think tank boom — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 322; Neoliberal investor-rights proposals mocked in the 1950s became the 21st-century norm. — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the…, 479; Neoliberalism’s 1980s breakthrough rested on decades of prior institutional groundwork — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 128 (+13 more)

Broader Connections

• Neoliberal development thought predated and coexisted with left-wing theories rather than countering them #corroborates (0.95) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1266
• Neoliberal development economics emerged parallel to, not after, mainstream development theory #corroborates (0.95) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1269
• Neoliberalism’s core concepts formed in the 1930s through networked institutions #expands (0.90) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 352
• Cold War anticommunism and colonial economics stunted early neoliberal development thinking #qualifies (0.85) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1267
• The 1970s marked the transition from postwar social-democratic settlement to the neoliberal global conjuncture. #qualifies (0.80) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 1198
• Neoliberalism emerged from the Great Depression, not from Viennese interwar thought alone #corroborates (0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 101