Pro-business elites endorsed planning and rejected laissez-faire in the 1930s

Evidence

Founded in 1931, the British think tank Political and Economic Planning (PEP) aspired to design a theory of “capitalist planning” where legislative delegation, expertise oversight, and the cult of the scientific method would make economic policy a mere matter of arbitration between public and private interests. Resolutely pro-business, their proposal was also fiercely anti-free-market, testifying to how unpopular laissez-faire had become with large sections of the business world itself. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 66

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Directly supports the anti-caricature aim in the reader’s reading purpose: business hostility to free markets predates and contextualizes the later turn to neoliberal advocacy.
• XREF: connects to: Planned economy rhetoric was the 1930s mainstream in Britain, not a fringe — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 65; In the 1930s pro-business thinkers themselves rejected free markets and laissez-faire. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 66; 1930s planning consensus elevated bureaucracies and the M-form over individual entrepreneurship — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 271 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• In the 1930s pro-business thinkers themselves rejected free markets and laissez-faire. #corroborates (0.95) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 66
• Economic planning was mainstream middle opinion in the 1930s, not a fringe radical idea. #expands (0.80) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 65
• 1930s planning consensus elevated bureaucracies and the M-form over individual entrepreneurship #expands (0.78) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 271
• By the 1930s economic planning had acquired scientific credibility #expands (0.75) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 76
• The early 1930s radicalized governments and isolated free-market economists. #expands (0.74) — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 41
• Laissez-faire advocates already called for active state programs in 1934 #corroborates (0.72) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 716
• Early neoliberals rejected laissez-faire and wanted strong state action #contradicts (0.70)