IL MOMENTO CONSERVATORE DEL NEOLIBERALISMO. FAMIGLIA, COMUNITÀ E TRADIZIONE TRA EUROPA E AMERICHE

The hypothesis of this research is that a fundamental conservative tension exists within neoliberalism, allowing to read it not simply as an economic theory, but as a political doctrine. Paraphrasing John G. A. Pocock, this thesis identifies a conservative «moment» of neoliberalism, that is, a conceptual core that, according to historical and geographical contexts, theorizes society as a hierarchical order, institutionalized through structures such as the family, the community and tradition. In this respect, this thesis investigates how historically neoliberalism emerged from a constitutive need to defend the market order against the collectivist demands of socialism and against the claims of social movements that were threatening its hold. Within this theoretical-political conflict, the conservative conceptual apparatus became the privileged instrument for reaffirming the hierarchies functional to the valorization of capital and to the government of individual freedom. The hypothesis of this work is examined through a necessarily global perspective, which first investigates the European genesis and then the transatlantic transmission of neoliberalism in three different contexts, selected because of their relevance in the conservative declination of neoliberalism. The first part of the thesis focuses on Europe in the period between the 1930s and the end of the 1950s, with particular attention to Germany, Austria and England, where neoliberal doctrines emerged in response to the crisis of the 1930s, the rise of a mass society, the advance of socialist parties and the spread of interventionist state models after World War II. The first chapter is devoted to the «conservative radicalism» of Wilhelm Röpke (1899-1966), who theorized the need for a legally regulated market and institutions such as the family and the community as instruments to ensure the obedience of individuals to a threatened social order, thus restoring the harmony and balance of market economy. He thus elaborated a model of civitas humana, animated by an ethic of social cooperation that could produce moral obligation towards the market order, presenting social hierarchies as necessary for both individual freedom and social stability. The second chapter investigates the conservative neoliberalism of Friedrich August von Hayek (1899-1992) who, like Röpke, witnessed the transformations brought about by the Great Depression and the advance of social-democratic systems of state regulation of society and the economy. It was precisely in opposition to these that he outlined a «constitution of freedom» based on the market order and legitimized by the unquestionable authority of tradition. Hayek’s writings are thus central to the investigation of the conservative moment of neoliberalism, as they engaged in a «battle of ideas» against socialism and its variants of government by employing the conceptual tools of conservatism as the ideological operators necessary to assert the cogency of the market order. The relevance of Röpke and Hayek, however, derived not only from their centrality in the theoretical elaboration of the neoliberal doctrine, but also and above all from their decisive role in the transatlantic diffusion of the conservative moment of neoliberalism. Following in the footsteps of Hayek in the United States and of both in Argentina, the second part of the thesis moves across the Atlantic. Here, the conservative moment of neoliberalism is investigated between the 1950s and the 1980s, first in the United States and then in Argentina. In the third chapter, the focus is on the neoconservatism of Irving Kristol (1920-2009) who, against social movements and the Great Society, faced the problem of restoring the liberal tradition and at the same time of reaffirming the legitimacy of the market order. In this sense, while recording the differences between neoliberals and neoconservatives, it will be possible to highlight a common, though not homogeneous identification of conservative social institutions as necessary to reaffirm the principle of authority and hierarchies indispensable to the functioning of the market order. Finally, the fourth chapter is devoted to the writings of Àlvaro Alsogaray (1913-2005), José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz (1925-2013) and Ricardo Zinn (1926-1995), through which it will be possible to interrogate the theoretical and institutional encounter between European-derived neoliberalism and the Argentinean dictatorial regime. In fact, these authors recognized neoliberalism as the only possible paradigm to oppose collectivist and dirigiste political models (peronism and developmentalism) and the dictatorship as an exceptional instrument to impose the market order. The Argentine case is therefore central to the development of the conservative «moment» of neoliberalism because it took to its extreme limit the constitutive contradiction between the freedom promised by the market and its constant limitation through conservative societal structures. Through different theoretical paths, the three authors allow to show how in Argentina, neoliberalism not only used a conservative theoretical apparatus in order to assert itself but identified dictatorship as the political condition of the market order.