A New Book:Masters of the Universe: Hayek, Friedman, and the Birth of Neoliberal Politics

Masters of the Universe: Hayek, Friedman, and the Birth of Neoliberal Politics 
by Daniel Stedman Jones  

2012 
Princeton University Press

How did American and British policymakers become so enamored with free markets, deregulation, and limited government? This book--the first comprehensive transatlantic history of the rise of neoliberal politics--presents a surprising answer. Based on archival research and interviews with leading participants in the movement, Masters of the Universe traces the ascendancy of neoliberalism from the academy of interwar Europe to supremacy under Reagan and Thatcher and in the decades since. Daniel Stedman Jones argues that there was nothing inevitable about the victory of free-market politics. Far from being the story of the simple triumph of right-wing ideas, the neoliberal breakthrough was contingent on the economic crises of the 1970s and the acceptance of the need for new policies by the political left.  Masters of the Universe describes neoliberalism's road to power, beginning in interwar Europe but shifting its center of gravity after 1945 to the United States, especially to Chicago and Virginia, where it acquired a simple clarity that was developed into an uncompromising political message. Neoliberalism was communicated through a transatlantic network of think tanks, businessmen, politicians, and journalists that was held together by Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. After the collapse of Bretton Woods in 1971, and the "stagflation" that followed, their ideas finally began to take hold as Keynesianism appeared to self-destruct. Later, after the elections of Reagan and Thatcher, a guileless faith in free markets came to dominate politics. Fascinating, important, and timely, this is a book for anyone who wants to understand the history behind the Anglo-American love affair with the free market, as well as the origins of the current economic crisis. Daniel Stedman Jones is a barrister in London. He was educated at the University of Oxford and at the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a PhD in history. He has worked as a policy adviser for the New Opportunities Fund and as a researcher for Demos.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Acknowledgments ix
Timeline xi
List of Abbreviations xiii
Introduction 1
     The Three Phases of Neoliberalism 6
     Neoliberalism and History 10
     Transatlantic Neoliberal Politics 15
1. The Postwar Settlement 21
2. The 1940s: The Emergence of the Neoliberal Critique 30
     Karl Popper and "The Open Society" 37
     Ludwig von Mises and "Bureaucracy" 49
     Friedrich Hayek and "The Road to Serfdom" 57
     The Mont Pelerin Society and "The Intellectuals and Socialism" 73
3. The Rising Tide: Neoliberal Ideas in the Postwar Period 85
     The Two Chicago Schools: Henry Simons, Milton Friedman, and Neoliberalism 89
     The Enlightenment, Adam Smith and Neoliberalism 100
     Economic and Political Freedom: Milton Friedman and Cold War Neoliberalism 111
     The German Economic Miracle: Neoliberalism and the Soziale Marktwirtschaft 121
     Regulatory Capture, Public Choice, and Rational Choice Theory 126
4. A Transatlantic Network: Think Tanks and the Ideological Entrepreneurs 134
     The United States in the 1950s: Fusionism and the Cold War 138
     British Conservatism in the 1950s 147
     Neoliberal Organization in the 1950s and 1960s 152
     The Second Wave: Free Market Think Tanks in the 1970s 161
     Neoliberal Journalists and Politicians 173
     Breakthrough? 178
5. Keynesianism and the Emergence of Monetarism, 1945-71 180
     Keynes and Keynesianism 182
     "A Little Local Difficulty": Enoch Powell's Monetarism 190
     American Economic Policy in the 1960s 197
     Milton Friedman's Monetarism 201
     The Gathering Storm 212
6. Economic Strategy: The Neoliberal Breakthrough, 1971-84 215
     The Slow Collapse of the Postwar Boom, 1964-71 217
     Stagflation and Wage and Price Policies 225
     The Heath Interregnum and the Neoliberal Alternative 230
     The Left Turns to Monetarism, 1: Callaghan, Healey, and the IMF Crisis 241
     The Left Turns to Monetarism, 2: Jimmy Carter and Paul Volcker's Federal Reserve 247
     Thatcherite Economic Strategy 254
     Reaganomics 263
     Conclusion 269
7. Neoliberalism Applied? The Transformation of Affordable Housing and Urban Policy in the United States and Britain, 1945-2000 273
     Postwar Low-Income Housing and Urban Policy in the United States 278
     Postwar Low-Income Housing and Urban Policy in Britain 288
     Jimmy Carter and the Limits of Government 295
     Property-Owning Democracy and Individual Freedom: Housing and Neoliberal Ideas 297
     The Reagan Administration 304
     Council House Privatization: The Right to Buy Scheme 308
     Transatlantic Transmissions: Reagan's Enterprise Zones 315
     Hope VI, Urban Regeneration, and the Third Way 321
     Conclusion 325
Conclusion - The Legacy of Transatlantic Neoliberalism: Faith-Based Policy 329
     Parallelisms: The Place of Transatlantic Neoliberal Politics in History 333
     The Apotheosis of Neoliberalism? 338
     Reason-Based Policymaking 343