The Political Conditions of the Market. Álvaro Alsogaray between Strong Democracy and Dictatorship

This article sheds light on a neglected but crucial aspect of the global intellectual history of neoliberalism by analyzing the economic and political thought of Álvaro Alsogaray, an Argentine member of the Mont Pèlerin Society and founder of the Instituto de la Economía Social de Mercado, between the 1960s and the 1980s. By examining the influence of figures such as Friedrich von Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, and Wilhelm Röpke on Alsogaray’s ideas, the article illustrates how European and US neoliberal theories were received, adapted, and radicalized in a context marked by the Peronist statist legacy, developmentalism, and significant political instability. For Alsogaray, indeed, the political condition for the institutionalization of the “social market economy” was the construction of a “strong democracy”, that is hierarchical and authoritarian. However, in the event that the foundations of the market order were threatened, he legitimated, both theoretically and practically, the suspension of the rule of law and the establishment of a dictatorship as a necessary tool to restore or assert economic freedom, private property, and free trade. Highlighting the specificity of Alsogaray’s thought, the article thus explores his contribution to what has been defined as the “neoliberal thought collective” (Mirowski and Plehwe 2009).