The neoliberal thought collective was itself a designed order, not a spontaneous one

Evidence

All this taxonomizing was fine; but the question that was motivating Hayek, even if he never adequately addressed it directly, was: What sort of “order” was the MPS, and what sort of order was the Neoliberal Thought Collective dedicated to bringing about? The provisional answer began by blurring the boundaries of the sharp distinction he had just wrought: “while the rules on which a spontaneous order rests may also be of spontaneous origin, this need not always be the case … it is possible that an order which would still have to be described as spontaneous rests on rules which were entirely the result of deliberate design … collaboration will always rest both on spontaneous order as well as deliberate organization.” Here he elided acknowledgment that the MPS and the larger NTC did not themselves qualify as a spontaneous order, if only because it was predicated upon stipulated rules that were not the same for all members; nor were they independent of any common purpose. When you unpacked all the shells of the Russian doll, it was just another elaborate hierarchical political movement. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 207

Categorization

• XREF: Directly extends the book’s central thesis on the NTC being an organized network, contradicting the self-image Hayek promoted. — connects to: Neoliberalism’s founders believed ideological change demanded deliberate collective organization — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 218; Neoliberals pursued an engineered order rather than expecting free markets to emerge naturally — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1907; Hayek held that mixing spontaneous order with organization is never rational — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 209 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Neoliberals pursued an engineered order rather than expecting free markets to emerge naturally #corroborates (0.90) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1907