While states were necessary to enforce labour discipline and security, and create the conditions for market competition, they had to be shielded from the demands of their own people and prevented from interfering with the market. As Hayek put it, the 'taming of the savage' must be followed by the 'taming of the state'. What was necessary was 'a set of rules which define what a state may do, and an authority capable of enforcing these rules'. It was essential that the post-war period avoid a return to 'unfettered sovereignty' – especially in former colonies. Here, the neoliberals were broadly in agreement, but they were still grappling with the question of what those rules would look like, and how they would be enforced. They were nonetheless clear that the problem of securing a liberal economy was not a technical one, and that the new order would need to amount to more than economic rules. Mises contended that the preconditions of an international economy were 'social, legal, constitutional and political'. Röpke stipulated that a truly international economic order must be based on 'fundamental liberty and equality of rights'. Against economic autarky, the neoliberals sought to develop a moral order for all humanity. 'No human cooperation and no lasting peace are conceivable', Mises concluded, 'if men put loyalty to any particular group above loyalty to humanity, moral law, and the principle of every individual's moral responsibility and autonomy.'

Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, loc. 266