Given, however, that the MPS project of reconstruction was a transnational effort, the Chicago contingent was not the only group investigating these issues. In 1951, as Friedman observed, "The doctrine sometimes called neoliberalism . . . [had] been developing more or less simultaneously in many parts of the world" (1951a, 91). A German cadre, later known as ordoliberals, or German neoliberals, was also occupied in reconsidering the classical liberal conceptions of monopoly and corporations, and in developing what became known as ordoliberal competition policy. However, unlike the Chicagoans, the Germans had begun their efforts in the mid-1930s (Gerber 1998, 234–235); by the late 1930s, the theoretical foundations of ordoliberalism were more or less in place. Despite the fact that both groups actively participated in the MPS, these two research initiatives turned out to be largely disengaged in practice, each influenced by different institutional and legal components within their respective country.

Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, loc. 1077