What I call “early neoliberalism” captures the period of self-declared neoliberalism from the 1930s to the 1960s. It is quite different semantically to what one would today associate with the concept when it serves as a critical term pointing at others or at certain conditions and policies as being neoliberal. Yet, at its birth and during its adolescence, neoliberalism was self-referential. Between the 1930s and the 1960s one can follow its proponents in various forums and debates and one still finds the label actively mentioned and defended. As Louis Baudin reminded Röpke and Rueff in 1948 during yet another colloquium, the term was known in the world and one could not take it back.

Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, loc. 364