Nevertheless, this international meeting became a landmark in the history of liberalism. For the first time, neoliberalism was defined by a set of postulates that constituted an agenda: the use of the price mechanism as the best way to obtain the maximal satisfaction of human expectations; the responsibility of the state for instituting a juridical framework adjusted to the order defined by the market; the possibility for the state to follow goals other than short-term expedients and to further them by levying taxes; the acceptance of state intervention if it does not favor any particular group and seeks to act upon the causes of the economic difficulties. “To be [neo]liberal, said Louis Rougier, doesn’t mean to be a ‘Manchesterian’ who leaves the cars circulating in all directions, if such is their will, which can only result in traffic jams and incessant accidents; it doesn’t mean to be a ‘Planist’ who gives every car its exit time and its route; it means to impose a highway code while admitting that it is not necessary to be the same at the time of the accelerated transports as at the time of diligences.” This metaphor, which Hayek also used in his Road to Serfdom, has an enhanced significance: it supposes that in order to function properly, economic competition requires dedicated institutions. It therefore specifies the type of intervention that is compatible with a liberal economic policy: the state creates the framework within which competition is free. It begins to clarify what a neoliberal state must be: a regulator that punishes deviations from the “correct” legal framework.

Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, loc. 281