Beginning in the 1980s, both Keynesianism and neocorporatism were heavily impugned. Criticism was aimed in part at politicians, who all too often gave into the temptation of stimulating the economy not just when it was economically necessary but also to win elections. The criticism against neocorporatism was that the big interest organisations were often not capable of acting in the public’s best interest but functioned more as selfish special interest groups that, using political pressure, could obtain undue advantages. As a result of this criticism, which was often empirically well supported, both Keynesianism and neocorporatism were replaced by a neoliberal paradigm.

In some aspects, this way of thinking was a return to the ideas that predominated before the crisis of the 1930s, that is, that market forces should be given freer rein in the economy and interest organisations should be kept on a short lead in politics. The leading advocate of this was known as the Chi...