Contrary to widely held convictions about the neoliberal “counterrevolution,” I will argue that neoliberal development discourse emerged together with modernization and radical paradigms, and thus also preceded more comprehensive left-wing theories (dependency theory, world systems theory), which appeared in the 1960s (Leys 1996, 8–11). … Ascher observes the “rise and dominance of a diluted neoclassicism in methodology and epistemology, and an antistatist doctrine that nonetheless is still pursued by and through state institutions” (Ascher 1996, 313; emphasis added). … Partly because of the common failure to better identify and recognize the neoliberal critique of neoclassical economics, his account does not explain the noted paradox of an alleged “antistatist” doctrine underpinning policies “nonetheless” pursued by and through state institutions.

Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, loc. 1266