Peter Bauer reframed development economics to prioritize markets over security concerns

Evidence

Looking back at the early MPS conferences, we note a growing self-confidence within the neoliberal camp with regard to the development theme. Although many intellectual and real components and circumstances needed for the subsequent rise to hegemony were still missing, many internal obstacles had been identified and addressed: Peter Bauer in particular clarified the neoliberal vision with regard to foreign aid. Bauer overcame the previous lack of confidence in entrepreneurship and market relations in the developing world within the neoliberal group of scholars and intellectuals steeped in colonial economics. Bauer’s work manifestly documents a neoliberal reasoning in which economic considerations are no longer subordinate to security concerns. Other contributions recognized and addressed specific needs with regard to capitalist agriculture in developing countries, and the manifold battle lines with competing discourses were more readily identified: the neoliberal war of position (Gramsci) could be fought more easily toward the end of the 1950s. At this point in time, organized neoliberals in science and politics had already developed an important network of intellectuals (as well as a few think tanks and corporate and political foundations) across borders, which operated in a more pluralist environment. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1334

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s existing work on austerity/neoliberalism origins — Bauer’s anti-aid stance is a founding thread of later neoliberal development policy. — connects to: P.T. Bauer argued egalitarian redistribution would inevitably spread totalitarian government. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 435; The market’s decentralized nature makes economic neocolonialism theoretically impossible for Bauer — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 402; Bauer anticipated the new political economy’s skepticism of predatory states — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1773 (+5 more)
• SEED: Angle: how one scholar’s anti-foreign-aid reasoning moved economic considerations above security concerns and seeded the neoliberal development paradigm.

Broader Connections

• Bauer mounted a critical attack on Myrdal’s development works #qualifies (0.78) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1364
• Fieldwork-based development economists shaped MPS ranks and conservative policy #expands (0.72) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1362