Neoliberals rejected European integration because the League’s voluntary model had already failed

Evidence

Against the continental dream of Eu­ro­pean integration the universalists maintained fidelity to the global vision of the League of Nations, which had envisioned an Open Door policy for the world. Even though by the end of the war the consensus at the League had shifted ­toward policies of full employment and Keynesian expansion, the League retained the promise of salutary liberal internationalism in the minds of Geneva School neoliberals. Fatefully, however, the precondition for the League’s success was always the goodwill and voluntary cooperation of the states involved. With no means to punish infractions by member states, and no means of compelling nonmembers to join, the liberal experiment had failed in the 1930s and its seemed doomed again ­after 1945. Many neoliberals who had been socialized in the 1920s and 1930s shared Haberler’s sense of disillusionment with the large-­scale solution that would involve the willing surrender of sovereignty by nations that had no desire to surrender it. Especially in light of the “paradoxical phenomenon” whereby the supposed beacon of ­free enterprise, the United States, was itself calling for nations to make multiyear plans to consistently disperse Marshall Plan funds, Haberler saw no route that could lead the postwar Eu­ro­pean states away from planning. Although the beginnings of market liberalization in West Germany, founded in 1949, offered a praiseworthy template, ­there was no institutional fix whereby the other nations would be forced to follow the German lead. — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists, 604

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the Geneva School’s universalist globalism vs. continental bloc integration as a key intellectual split within postwar neoliberalism.
• XREF: Connects to Chapter 4’s investment code and bilateral investment treaty discussion — the xenos rights of investors as the preferred neoliberal legal mechanism. — connects to: Early neoliberalism grew out of League of Nations institutional networks — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 403; Hayek’s institute drove the League of Nations’ Danubian Economic Study. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 397; Early neoliberalism’s core ideas emerged inside League of Nations institutions. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 366 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Early neoliberalism grew out of League of Nations institutional networks #complicates (0.75) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 403
• Early neoliberalism’s core ideas emerged inside League of Nations institutions. #complicates (0.75) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 366
• Hayek’s institute drove the League of Nations’ Danubian Economic Study. #complicates (0.72) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 397
• Key ordoliberal and Austrian thinkers were funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and League #complicates (0.72) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 376
• The Walter Lippmann Colloquium grew directly from prewar League of Nations intellectual cooperation #complicates (0.72) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 368