Director’s assessment was rather pessimistic, however. Most of the conclave attendants had concurred with Simons’s memo in principle, but all had registered disagreement with Simons’s more elaborate vision of a twenty-year project that aimed to advance the tradition of liberal economic doctrines and influence public policy. There was, for instance, some hesitation about Hayek’s “Austrian” methodological proclivities. Instead, Director and the others “would assign more importance than he does to a certain amount of empirical investigation—directed of course to the central issue of maintaining competitive conditions. An investigation of the economies of scale and inevitability of monopoly suggest itself as an illustration. An incidental advantage of the inclusion of empirical work is greater ‘saleability’ so that it would not be necessary to insist on as on a period as twenty years. Assured existence for 8 to 10 years—perhaps even 5 or 6 years—might in fact imply some assurance of an extension to the maximum period of twenty years."

Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, loc. 734