Neoliberalism targets elite opinion through knowledge redefinition, not direct corporate service.

Evidence

The unusual structure of the thought collective helps explain why neoliberalism cannot be easily inscribed on a set of three-by-five cards, and needs to be understood as a pluralist entity (within certain limits) striving to distinguish itself from its three primary foes: laissez-faire classical liberalism, social-welfare liberalism, and socialism. Contrary to the dichotomies and rigidities that characterized classical liberalism with regard to its proposed firewalls between economics and politics, neoliberalism has to be understood as a flexible and pragmatic response to the previous crisis of capitalism (viz., the Great Depression) with a clear vision of what needed to be opposed by all means: a planned economy and a vibrant welfare state. Contrary to some narrow interests of some corporate captains (including some in the MPS), neoliberal intellectuals understood this general goal to imply a comprehensive long-term reform effort to retat the entire fabric of society, not excluding the corporate world. The relationship between the neoliberals and capitalists was not merely that of passive apologists. Neoliberals aimed to develop a thoroughgoing reeducation effort for all parties to alter the tenor and meaning of political life: nothing more, nothing less. Neoliberal intellectuals identified their immediate targets as elite civil society. Their efforts were primarily aimed at winning over intellectuals and opinion leaders of future generations, and their primary instrument was redefining the place of knowledge in society, which also became the central theme in their theoretical tradition. … But what to the politicians are fixed limits of practicability imposed by public opinion must not be similar limits to us. Public opinion on these matters is the work of men like ourselves … who have created the political climate in which the politicians of our time must move … I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 135

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Mirowski’s own ‘thought collective’/MPS framework and to Mirowski on why experts dominate narratives — the reader’s core ‘thought collective’ keyword thread. — connects to: Neoliberal think tanks were designed to influence elites rather than politicians — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 576; Neoliberalism pairs a scientific self-image with elite-directed ideological strategy, not democratic science — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 92; Neoliberalism triumphed through fringe think tanks, not academic economics — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 377 (+1 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that ideas beat vested interests and are manufactured by intellectuals — a dense inversion of naive material-interest models of politics — is a paradigm-level claim worth sitting with.
• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 135

Broader Connections

• Neoliberal think tanks were designed to influence elites rather than politicians #corroborates (0.85) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 576
• Neoliberalism pairs a scientific self-image with elite-directed ideological strategy, not democratic science #expands (0.80) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 92
• Neoliberalism rests on a double truth separating elite doctrine from mass propaganda #corroborates (0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 2146
• Neoliberalism triumphed through fringe think tanks, not academic economics #corroborates (0.72) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 377