Globalists: the end of empire and the birth of neoliberalism

By Dinara Urazova. International Affairs, 2019

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Vienna, Freiburg, London, Chicago this is the traditional map of emergence of “neoliberalism”1. Most scientists follow this intellectual itinerary, with a possible addition of “Colloque Walter Lippmann” (1938) that was associated with the French capital. Quinn Slobodian, who clearly knows the socio-economic dynamics of Central Europe very well, claims something else and introduces a new center: Geneva, or “Geneva School” in a broad sense of the word, with people such as Wilhelm Röpke, Ludwig von Mises, Michael Heilperin, Friedrich Hayek, Lionel Robbins, Gottfried Haberler, Jan Tumlir, Frieder Roessler, and Ulrich Petersmann. This gave birth not only to a new location in the geography of neo-liberalism, but to a real center which reflects some contents that define the dynamics of neoliberalism. Although Hayek et al. are the subject of discussion here, Slobodian is cautious enough not to fall into the trap of overestimating the influence of certain theoreticians, or to attribute direct causality to conceptual articulations (though he introduces us to the implications of Mises’ private seminar, for instance). We cannot attribute omnipotence to neoliberal theoreticians who form economic or legal theories, or to institutionalized neoliberalism, which is usually attributed to the influence of those theoreticians who found themselves in Mont Pèlerin in 1947. However, there is still the problem of lack of explanation of neoliberalism genesis that would encompass complex conceptual and institutional determinations, which also entails the possibility of translating neoliberal design into institutional praxis. The same stands for the question in the title of one of Mises’ seminars: “How to build a bridge between economic theory and economic policy?” This book presents a broad and a truly dense narrative of the so far unknown or less known details and personalities of neoliberalism. It guides us through international institutions (GATT, WTO) that shape neoliberal design in the twentieth century, revealing economists and jurists who use their influence and “symbolic capital” to shape

Subfields: Sociology and Political Science

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