The PMC, which Rappard headed, broke with a naturalistic faith in markets in order to develop a body of rules to foster investment and capital accumulation. Its experiment in the use of transnational bodies to bind states in the interests of capital influenced neoliberal techniques of government. It inspired not only the Bretton-Woods institutions and the WTO, but also the European Union (EU), which much later used similar techniques – and similar racialised accusations of laziness and absent entrepreneurialism – to impose austerity on 'backward' southern European nations. In Rappard's description, the PMC was an 'umpire' ensuring that the game was played fairly, which must be clearly independent of governments. Otherwise 'the game would be up, because no one could be expected to play the game if the umpire was suspected of having been unduly influenced'. A central lesson of the mandate system, and one that the neoliberals would often insist on, was that the needs of capital would be best served by a transnational body of rules overseen by 'impartial' umpires imposing rules on all players. It is fitting, then, that the Centre William Rappard in Geneva is now home to the WTO.

Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, loc. 93