Walter Lippmann — War and Prices at the Colloque Walter Lippmann (1938)

1. 1. The Colloque Walter Lippmann in 1938 helped coin the term 'neoliberal' and galvanized the network that later formed the Mont Pelerin Society in 1947.
2. 2. Lippmann argued at the Colloque that liberal states must prepare for war and accept state planning for a war economy, prioritizing defense over free prices.
3. 3. Jacques Rueff and Michael Heilperin argued that the free play of market prices is the defining criterion of a liberal system, opposing state intervention for war or welfare.
4. 4. Stefan Possony argued that wartime requires state intervention to impose investment in armaments and possibly price controls, contradicting the price-mechanism purists.
5. 5. After the Munich conference in September 1938, Lippmann advocated for massive public investment in American war production, moving from neoliberalism to military Keynesianism.
6. 6. Lippmann supported price controls and state purchase of essential commodities to combat inflation during the war, rejecting the neoliberal emphasis on free prices.
7. 7. Lippmann argued for full employment after the war as a political necessity, stating that the public would not tolerate postwar unemployment.
8. 8. Lippmann refused to write a foreword to Hayek's 'The Road to Serfdom' (1944), likely due to his support for state planning and military Keynesianism.
9. 9. Lippmann supported the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947, which reduced labor's bargaining power, seeing it as compatible with the postwar Keynesian consensus.
10. 10. Lippmann's post-Colloque trajectory was a military-Keynesian turn to prepare the American war economy, not a drift away from neoliberalism driven by external factors.