Industrialization strategies were doomed to fail, according to Röpke, owing to the lack of a “liberal tradition” required to succeed in manufacturing. Throughout the Third World, with the exception of some Latin American countries, Röpke thought he observed a lack of punctuality, reliability, the inclination to save and to create—entrepreneurship for short. A successful approach, he believed, would require recognizing the “subtle and complicated process” of development, “flexible adaptation,” “smart connections to the existing,” and “slowly growing”—just the opposite of the goals of planners (all quotes from Röpke 1953, 77).

Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, loc. 1286