Neoliberalism was internally divided over monetary policy for decades

Evidence

Whereas neoliberalism is often presented as an internally consistent and unified ideology, the case of monetary order belies this impression. While the final message may have been that “there is no alternative,” debates took place first about what that one policy option was, to which there is no alternative. Indeed, the rather complicated, arcane, and seemingly technical question of the international monetary system was the most controversial and divisive among organized neoliberals in the postwar decades. It resulted in the longest and most contentious internal controversy between two fundamentally opposed camps that dominated many of the yearly MPS meetings in the postwar period and threatened to split the emerging neoliberal international in the course of the 1960s. Thus, even as it documents a considerable policy victory, this chapter shows that neoliberals did not always speak with a single voice. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 410

Categorization

• XREF: Directly serves the reader’s stated purpose of fracturing the crude caricature of neoliberalism as monolithic — connects to other chapters in this same volume on internal varieties/debates. — connects to: Neoliberals split into warring factions over fixed versus floating exchange rates — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 41; Neoliberals were deeply divided over monetary order despite claims of unity — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 435; Neoliberalism is internally diverse and marked by real internal conflict — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 45 (+3 more)
• SEED: Article angle: ‘There Is No Alternative’ — but to what? Recovering the lost internal debates over which specific policy was the single option.

Broader Connections

• Neoliberals were deeply divided over monetary order despite claims of unity #corroborates (0.95) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 435
• Neoliberalism is internally diverse and marked by real internal conflict #corroborates (0.85) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 45
• Neoliberal economists’ monetary preferences tracked their birth decade and formative experiences #expands (0.85) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 437
• Neoliberalism holds together several unresolved internal contradictions by asserting both sides at once #expands (0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 2142