Neoliberals traced market morality back to eighteenth-century liberal philosophy

Evidence

Röpke argued that the central contribution of ‘bourgeois’ liberal philosophy was to teach that ‘there is nothing shameful in the self-reliance and self-assertion of the individual taking care of himself and his family’ without which our civilisation is unthinkable. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 205

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Neoliberal thinkers rejected natural-rights foundations, deriving morality from market evolution — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 28; Neoliberals framed the spread of markets as dependent on moral and religious foundations — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 120; Early neoliberalism emerged partly from a critique of laissez-faire and naturalist philosophies of history — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 379 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Early neoliberalism emerged partly from a critique of laissez-faire and naturalist philosophies of history #contradicts (0.75) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 379
• Neoliberals pursued an engineered order rather than expecting free markets to emerge naturally #contradicts (0.72) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1907