The neoliberal thought collective was founded to redeem itself from Depression-era defeat by Keynesians

Evidence

On March 5–7, 2009, the Mont Pèlerin Society (MPS) held a special meeting at Ground Zero of the global economic meltdown, New York City, to discuss the implications of the tremors for their political project. Around a hundred members and an additional hundred guests convened under the banner “The End of Globalizing Capitalism? Classical Liberal Responses to the Global Financial Crisis.” Back then, many titular heads of the neoliberal movement were dreading the possibility that the snowballing crisis might just be their own worst nightmare. After all, the prime event that had originally prompted the organization of the nascent Neoliberal Thought Collective [NTC] was the Great Depression of the 1930s. The initial motley crew of Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Lionel Robbins, Milton Friedman, and all the rest had endured the horror of being ridiculed and lambasted for their responses to the Great Contraction, relegated to the margins of discourse by the sheer misfire of the Economic Engine of Human Progress. They had huddled at Mont Pèlerin in 1947 to try and figure out how to intellectually redeem themselves. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 20

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the NTC (Neoliberal Thought Collective) acronym and the MPS founding story that recur throughout the book.
• XREF: Grounds the reader’s core ‘thought collective’ theme; connects to Mirowski’s broader genealogy of the 1947 Mont Pèlerin founding. — connects to: The Depression-era collapse, not settled doctrine, produced postwar free-market thought. — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 33; Neoliberalism emerged from the Great Depression, not from Viennese interwar thought alone — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 101; Neoliberal intellectuals formed a thought collective as a unit — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 10 (+8 more)
• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 20

Broader Connections

• Neoliberal ideas were displaced by Keynesianism only briefly #contradicts (0.82) — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 157
• Mont Pèlerin founders deliberately adopted progressive rhetoric to defend markets after the Depression #expands (0.80) — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 276
• Neoliberal intellectuals formed a thought collective as a unit #corroborates (0.78) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 10
• Lippmann’s 1937 Good Society launched the neoliberal program against Depression-era orthodoxy #exemplifies (0.75) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 105
• Neoliberalism emerged from the Great Depression, not from Viennese interwar thought alone #expands (0.72) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 101
• Austrian fatalism made Hayek’s side politically unsalable in the Depression #complicates (0.72) — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 490
• Hayek’s economics failed because it offered no remedy during the Depression #responds-to (0.72) — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 81
• Even Friedman rejected Hayek’s do-nothing policy as harmful in the Depression #corroborates (0.72) — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 82
• Hayek abandoned economic theory for philosophy after Myrdal and Keynesians demolished his monetary work. #responds-to (0.72) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 515
• The Depression forced postwar conservatives to rebuild capitalism’s foundations, not defend them #expands (0.70) — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 33