Neoliberal rejection of Western guilt aimed to forestall restitution demands, not defend empire

Evidence

The reaction to Rüstow’s book elevated the rejection of Western guilt into a formative tenet of neoliberal development discourse. Yet, rather than a backward-looking attempt to secure the colonial order, this rejection was forward-looking, orientated towards forestalling Third Worldist demands for restitution. This is clearest in the work of Bauer, who had stressed since the early 1970s that ‘it is untrue that the west has caused the poverty of the underdeveloped world, whether through colonialism or otherwise’. Bauer, a Hungarian-born British development economist and MPS member, was a vehement opponent of state-directed development and Cold War modernisation theories. In 1981, several years before the LSF Colloquium, Bauer published a book that attributed accounts of Western responsibility for Third World poverty to colonial guilt. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 400

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s earlier work on the LSF Colloquium and the MPS, positioning Bauer’s stance within the wider neoliberal development discourse. — connects to: Neoliberals feared colonial anti-imperialism would morph into anti-capitalism — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 251; Victimhood and reparation demands function as leverage in soft diplomacy, not genuine settlement — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 1242

Broader Connections

• Neoliberals feared colonial anti-imperialism would morph into anti-capitalism #qualifies (0.85) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 251