During this period the neoliberal agenda was instead developed and advanced from new, nonacademic organizations, of which the Institute of Economic Affairs was the first. Except for a brief period in the early 1970s, these institutions found themselves firmly on the fringe of policy and politics. This changed with the election of Thatcher's Conservative government in 1979: what had hitherto been peripheral now became mainstream. British "Keynesian" academics were locked out of policy formation by the new government. They looked on as the government shaped an economic policy inspired by the ideas of monetarist zealots, journalists, and free market ideologues who could broadly be considered "neoliberal" in orientation.

Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, loc. 377