No longer was the extension of state control perceived as an encroachment on individual liberty; instead, each enlargement of the state's authority and activity was now to be judged in terms of its positive or negative impact on personal liberty. Furthermore, the liberties that it defended in this way were increasingly conceived in economic, rather than political, terms: free trade and hostility to the corporatism of both employers and trade unions. Through the twentieth century the transition from political to economic freedom became the signature of a neoliberal agenda.

Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, loc. 380