Volker Fund pushed neoliberal reformulation to serve corporate Cold War interests

Evidence

After all, the stated objective was to produce an American Road to Serfdom, and this entailed something more than a minor adjustment of accent when transporting the text across the pond. The politics of postwar America presumed not only a powerful state, but also a configuration of powerful corporations whose international competitors had mostly been reduced to shadows of their former selves. In promoting “freedom,” they were primarily intent on guaranteeing the freedom of corporations to conduct their affairs as they wished. Thus, the Volker Fund was not interested in bankrolling a classical liberal economic position resembling that of Henry Simons, for it did not adequately correspond to their objectives. American corporations did not fear concentrations of power and generally favored the existence of a powerful Cold War state. It is our contention that the Volker Fund pushed for a reformulation of classic liberalism in the American context to conform to its Cold War antisocialist agenda. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 762

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to the reader’s goal of origins of the neoliberal intellectual network — core historiography. — connects to: Neoliberal funders treated policy influence as a vertically integrated production pipeline — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 127; The Volker Fund redirected a charity into American conservative intellectual politics — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 716; The Volker Fund bankrolled FEE as a libertarian propaganda outlet — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 758 (+6 more)
• QUESTION: How does this thesis compare to the standard ‘voluntarist’/MPS-centered account of early neoliberalism in other chapters? Worth checking the historiographic debate.

Broader Connections

• Capitalism and Freedom originated as a Volker Fund project delivered a decade late #expands (0.85) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 793
• Volker Fund wanted an American Road to Serfdom pitched at near-literacy level #corroborates (0.85) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 738
• Cold War security needs made the welfare state an intolerable impertinence for neoliberals #expands (0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1333
• Business conservatives funding the postwar right were not cleanly neoliberal #qualifies (0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1478
• Cold War rivalry led US agencies to fund state-led socialist-style development abroad. #complicates (0.75) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1294
• Neoliberal think tanks were designed to influence elites rather than politicians #expands (0.75) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 576