The postwar Keynesian consensus silenced rightwing academic criticism of planning

Evidence

A small number of important British economists were active in the MPS, and Robbins himself drafted its program. During the immediate postwar period, neoliberal academic criticism of welfarism and planning could be directed at the activities of the Labour government; but criticism of the government from the right became more difficult once Labour gave way to the Conservatives in 1951. Academic opinion instead embraced a muted Keynesian synthesis, broadly aligning itself with governments of the day through the ensuing three decades of Conservative and Labour rule. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 377

Categorization

• CANDY: Counterintuitive nugget: rightwing economists lost their rhetorical freedom precisely when the Conservatives took power — criticism of ‘the government from the right’ became harder under a Tory government.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 377
• XREF: connects to: Conservatives abandoned austerity as an intellectual argument once Keynesianism triumphed — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 352; Rightwing ideological funding organizations were almost nonexistent in the postwar period — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 250; Neoliberal development thought predated and coexisted with left-wing theories rather than countering them — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1266 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Think tanks slowly displaced Keynesianism with free-market doctrine in Britain #qualifies (0.75) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 1108
• Neoliberal development thought predated and coexisted with left-wing theories rather than countering them #qualifies (0.72) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1266
• Neoliberalism crystallized partly as opposition to scientists promoting planned socialism #contradicts (0.72)