The publication of Walter Lippmann's (An Inquiry into the Principles of) The Good Society in 1937 marked the beginning of a new dawn in the history of neoliberalism. The book was enthusiastically welcomed by the liberal intellectuals in Europe, perhaps even more so than in America (Steel 1980). Lippmann's core message was the superiority of the market economy over state intervention, a principle that was (to say the least) leaning against the wind in the depths of the Great Depression. The book was brimming with insights that would later constitute the conventional wisdom in neoliberal circles, notably: In a free society the state does not administer the affairs of men.

Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, loc. 105