The term neo-liberal covers a number of meanings. Many thinkers in early
twenty century Europe were actually defined as neo-liberals because they
seemed to be conscious that the growing mass society presented some
features that could be faced only by a revised liberalism. For example,
Maffeo Pantaleoni was shocked by the (in his mind,negative) impact of mass
society  upon the political system. Particularly the increasing power of
trades unions and of industrial and banking monopolies were considered by
Pantaleoni and his followers as incompatible with traditional liberalism.
A reform of liberalism was hoped (in fact, in a conservative or
reactionary direction). Many early Fascists in Italy labelled themselves
"neo-Liberal" (among them Giovanni Gentile,  who broke his friendship on
this occasion with Croce, who maintained a more traditional Liberal view).
In fact, Gentile became the official philosopher of Fascism. On the
contrary, such thinkers  as Gobetti and Amendola (both of them victims of
Fascism) were to some extent neo-Liberals and inspired the subsequent
movement of Giustizia e Libertà, that tried to combine classical
Liberalism with non-Marxist socialism. Among economists, Luigi Einaudi
manifested early sympathies towards the Fabians and was open to an
evolution of classical Liberalism into a reformist socialism, but he
didn't define himself a "neo-Liberal". After  World War I (1919) his fear
of revolution prompted him to come back to nineteeenh century Liberal
doctrine, openly sharing the Tocqueville-Acton line. He never defined
himself a neo-Liberal. He eventually adhered to the Mount Pelerin Society.
Riccardo Faucci


> In his JPE review of Die Konkurrenz Untersuchungen über die
> Ordnungsprinzipien und Entwicklungstendenzen der Kapitalistischen
> Verkehrswirtschaft by Georg Halm, Arthur R. Burns (1930, 490) states that
> Halm is a member of the "neo-liberal school of Professor Adolf Weber, of
> Munich". I would be grateful for references to earlier uses of the term.
>
> RL
>