Rather than a global order that allowed for national-economic experimentation and expansion, neoliberals aimed at turning the causal chain around and establishing an international monetary order that would force societies onto a market-liberal and anti-inflationary path. The key question that shaped the neoliberal debates for the coming quarter century was posed by Hayek at the founding meeting of the MPS: “how can monetary policy be automatic, and outside the range of politics?” The classical solution to the twin neoliberal demands of free capital flows and automatic market mechanisms to roll back democratic economic policies had been the gold standard. Yet, after 1945, neoliberals launched an intense and enduring debate, in which the classical solution was criticized as unrealistic and was increasingly displaced by another proposal—that of floating exchange rates.

Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, loc. 425