April 1947, Mont Pèlerin

It is often said that neoliberalism rules the world. But where does this powerful ideology come from? Its founding father was the Viennese economist Friedrich von Hayek. In 1947 in the Swiss mountain village of Mont Pèlerin, he created a think-tank to defend the free market from socialism. At the same time, fellow Austrian Karl Polanyi was advocating for the social market economy, a model which initially held sway in Western Europe. Later on, however, members of Hayek’s Mont Pèlerin Society, including Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman, gained global influence, and neoliberalism has been increasingly dominant since the 1970s.