As noted earlier, as president of the Mont Pèlerin Society, Schmölders suggested the “entrepreneur in modern economy and society” as the theme for the conference he organized in Munich in 1970. Vigorously raising financial support from German companies for the ambitious conference program, Schmölders saw the meeting of the “neoliberal thought collective” as an opportunity to present his research agenda in empirical socioeconomics to an international audience. It was not sufficient to analyze the real function of the entrepreneur within the economy, Schmölders explained in his opening address, but also public opinion, which influenced economic decision-making processes and economic policy. Starting with the findings of Schmölders’s institute, presenters on the first day thus reported on the “image of the entrepreneur” in Germany, the United States, France, Great Britain, Japan, India, South Africa and in “Underdeveloped (Poor) Countries,” before others concentrated particularly on the entrepreneur’s image among certain groups. Schmölders’s success in convincing his fellow neoliberals to follow his research agenda, however, was rather limited.

Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, loc. 338