Right-wing economists defended nineteenth-century laissez-faire against Lippmann’s attack

Evidence

“Who were the callous Liberals of the late nineteenth century?” W. H. Hutt asked in the South African Journal of Economics, speculating that Lippmann was here showing a failure to overcome dubious “ideas which he absorbed as a young man and cultivated as editor of The New Republic.” Herbert Spencer, Hutt further complained, had become “an Aunt Sally,” and those who read the muchdisparaged members of the Manchester School would fi nd them to be paragons of disinterested idealism. — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 158

Categorization

• XREF: Hutt’s defense of the Manchester School prefigures the later neoliberal rehabilitation of classical liberalism within the MPS; relevant to the reader’s adjacent history interest. — connects to: Lippmann attacked laissez-faire ideology while defending active government intervention — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 158; Austrian economics constituted the original reactionary rejection of state-managed liberalism — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 315; Early neoliberals explicitly distanced themselves from classical laissez-faire doctrine — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 117 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Early neoliberals explicitly distanced themselves from classical laissez-faire doctrine #qualifies (0.78) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 117
• Austrian economics constituted the original reactionary rejection of state-managed liberalism #corroborates (0.75) — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 315