Neoliberalism incorporated: Early Neoliberal Involvement in the Postwar Reconstruction: The Case Study of the Netherlands (1945–1958)

Abstract

Although recent studies have extensively traced the development of neoliberal ideas in international think-tanks since the late 1930s, scholars of early neoliberalism have paid far less attention to the translation of these ideas into policy. Current scholarship predominantly identifies the introduction of neoliberal policies with a paradigm shift among policymakers in the late 1970s and depicts the early neoliberal movement as an idea-centred and isolated phenomenon that was unable to put its ideas into practice. This article argues instead that early neoliberals employed an idea-centred approach to politics to establish a coalition of like-minded academics, journalists, politicians and policy officials. Focusing on the Netherlands, it demonstrates how this strategy brought neoliberals press coverage, influence within the Christian democratic parliamentary parties and acknowledgement among professional economists. On the one hand, their struggle to exert influence over policy matters contributed to the implementation of pro-market industrialization policies, which, ironically, were pursued by a coalition of social democrats and Christian democrats. On the other hand, it also compelled them to include Christian-democratic views in their political agenda, leading to a corporatist-neoliberal policy synthesis whose features exhibit remarkable similarities to German ‘ordoliberal’ ideas.