However, Hayek's standpoint reflects only one side of the discussions that occurred in neoliberal circles during the 1950s. In the plurality of neoliberal viewpoints expressed on unions, Hayek opted for the most radical version, the one least tolerant of the very existence of unions. This was the version that scholars like Machlup and Petro, both former students of Mises, supported from 1947 to 1958. As this chapter has demonstrated, this view was fostered primarily in the American context and reflects the political and social interests of an ultraconservative fraction of employers, who regarded existing European practices with disdain. In opting for contempt, Hayek explicitly rejected another potential neoliberal position, which considered that a solidarity of interests between capital and labor could sometimes be appropriate and beneficial. The hostility to this alternative position went far beyond mere disputation over appropriate economic and social theory. Hayek felt it necessary to condemn those comrades who defended it and to describe such an alliance between employers and employees as “the crudest type of socialism, commonly known as syndicalism” (Hayek 1959, 292). In his Constitution of Liberty (chapter 19 on Labor Unions and Employment), Hayek simply omits neoliberal authors who were advocates of the alternative, only referring to “serious” neoliberal authors such as Machlup, Hutt, Petro, and Mises. From that time forward, the Hayekian position became the dominant neoliberal perspective on unions, notably because those who defended a more cooperative view with unions lost their influence in neoliberal circles. This shift is all the more important to consider in the present context, given that in many other theoretical disputes within the MPS, Hayek was not able to prevail.

Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, loc. 979