The League mandate system pioneered transnational rules that later disciplined EU austerity.

Evidence

The PMC, which Rappard headed, broke with a naturalistic faith in markets in order to develop a body of rules to foster investment and capital accumulation. Its experiment in the use of transnational bodies to bind states in the interests of capital influenced neoliberal techniques of government. It inspired not only the Bretton-Woods institutions and the WTO, but also the European Union (EU), which much later used similar techniques – and similar racialised accusations of laziness and absent entrepreneurialism – to impose austerity on ‘backward’ southern European nations. In Rappard’s description, the PMC was an ‘umpire’ ensuring that the game was played fairly, which must be clearly independent of governments. Otherwise ‘the game would be up, because no one could be expected to play the game if the umpire was suspected of having been unduly influenced’. A central lesson of the mandate system, and one that the neoliberals would often insist on, was that the needs of capital would be best served by a transnational body of rules overseen by ‘impartial’ umpires imposing rules on all players. It is fitting, then, that the Centre William Rappard in Geneva is now home to the WTO. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 93

Categorization

• XREF: Core connection to the reader’s Austerity/Neoliberalism topic — traces the genealogy of the EU’s austerity imposition on southern Europe back to colonial mandate governance. — connects to: The League of Nations mandate system pioneered transnational human rights monitoring — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 94; German ordoliberalism was exported to Europe via the ECB constitution and Euro rules — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 375; Early neoliberalism grew out of League of Nations institutional networks — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 403 (+1 more)
• ADDENDUM: Connects directly to the ‘Complaints About Immodesty’ piece’s theme of racialized accusations of laziness, here aimed at southern Europeans.
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that the WTO’s home is named after the man who ran the colonial mandate commission — a genealogy running from League mandates to EU austerity — is paradigm-shifting for understanding neoliberal governance.

Broader Connections

• Early neoliberalism grew out of League of Nations institutional networks #expands (0.78) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 403
• German ordoliberalism was exported to Europe via the ECB constitution and Euro rules #corroborates (0.75) — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 375