Neoliberals rejected the pure state-versus-market binary as a false dichotomy

Evidence

It was no longer the tired binary of state vs. market for them, but rather, the ways in which they were thought to be necessarily intertwined. … What may look like a “compromise” with socialism to the atavistic liberal right wing really is a fundamental insight that neoliberals share with social liberals: There is no such thing as a stable free market or pristine capitalism. … But whereas social liberals consider social and economic inequality the devil of capitalism, neoliberals believe in the need to achieve greater stability under conditions of capitalism and inequality. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 9

Categorization

• DEFINE: Sharpens the precise meaning of ‘neoliberalism’ in this book’s historiography: not market purity but managed, intertwined state-market order.
• DEEPTHINKING: This framing — that what looks like compromise is actually a foundational analytic insight shared with social liberals, differing mainly on whether inequality is the enemy — reorients the familiar ‘neoliberalism = market fundamentalism’ picture.
• XREF: Echoes Mirowski’s and the standard ‘neoliberal thought collective’ reading; also connects to the reader’s earlier building understanding of neoliberal network formation. — connects to: Financialization and national populism form a false binary, not opposing forces — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living with…, 390; Market debates mirror the 1960s technology debates’ false dichotomy of adulation versus refusal. — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial…, 121; The greed-versus-regulation framing itself is a false dichotomy — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 1774 (+12 more)

Broader Connections

• Neoliberals pursued an engineered order rather than expecting free markets to emerge naturally #expands (0.85) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1907