Neoliberal restructuring programs served as whole-economy experiments producing economic facts.

Evidence

Among the most ambitious forms of economic experiment in recent decades have been the attempts in numerous countries to reformat the economy as a whole, in programs of neoliberal economic restructuring (see Fischer, Chapter 9 in this volume). The scale of these experiments offers unusual opportunities for putting economic arguments to the test. Such tests are interesting, not so much for the facts they confirm—the evidence never seems complete enough to establish conclusive arguments—as for what they tell us about how neoliberal facts about the economy are produced. They illuminate the relationship between neoliberal economics and the object it studies—including the role of think tanks and other intermediaries in this relationship. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1917

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to the performativity thesis (Callon/Mackenzie): the economy is co-produced by the economics that describes it. — connects to: Neoliberal policy experiments are preconditions that make economic research findings possible — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1955; Neoliberal policies produced experiments whose results fed yet more neoliberal projects — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1983; Experimental findings in economics circulate and reinforce the facts of the field — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1980 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Neoliberal policy experiments are preconditions that make economic research findings possible #expands (0.92) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1955
• Neoliberal policies produced experiments whose results fed yet more neoliberal projects #expands (0.90) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1983
• Prior experiments determine which economic facts even become available and plausible #expands (0.90) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1986
• Economists’ natural experiments depend on infrastructure built by real-world projects #expands (0.88) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1940
• Economics tests claims by treating the world itself as a laboratory. #expands (0.85) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1915
• Neoliberal governance reshapes scholarship to serve economic usefulness #expands (0.82) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 626
• Experimental findings in economics circulate and reinforce the facts of the field #expands (0.78) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1980