Neoliberals historically co-opted leftist ideas but offered no new thinking in 2009

Evidence

Once upon a time, such an emergency executive committee meeting of the NTC might have been the occasion for truly imaginative blue sky thinking, forging an optimal response to the impending collapse of their cherished worldview. Perhaps, in a rerun of the 1940s, the neoliberals in 2009 might have come up with some transformative new ways to think about the market, stealing some of the thunder of the left by combining previously statist concepts with a novel revision of the True Nature of market activity. To a historian, it is striking the extent to which the neoliberals have repeatedly taken ideas from the left over the last half of the twentieth century and twisted them to their own purposes. Perusing the papers from the New York conference, however, one finds instead mostly predictable platitudes and tired retreads about the wicked government causing the crisis. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 21

Categorization

• XREF: The 1940s rerun and ‘taken ideas from the left’ connects to Mirowski’s broader argument in this book and to the Mont Pelerin Society’s history chapters. — connects to: Neoliberal development thought predated and coexisted with left-wing theories rather than countering them — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1266; Neoliberal core ideas mutate to fuse with both left and right worldviews. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 31; Neoliberalism succeeded by capturing sixties anti-authoritarian energies the left failed to harness — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 2101
• QUESTION: Vague on specifics — which leftist ideas did neoliberals twist, and how did Mont Pelerin-era meetings differ?
• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 21

Broader Connections

• Neoliberal development thought predated and coexisted with left-wing theories rather than countering them #contradicts (0.85) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1266
• Neoliberal core ideas mutate to fuse with both left and right worldviews. #expands (0.80) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 31