Architects of the Mixed Economy: Assar Lindbeck, Ingemar Ståhl, and Gösta Rehn

At what point can a social democrat be described as neoliberal? In 1982, Swedish economist Assar Lindbeck (1930–2020) left the Social Democratic Party, although he claimed to remain a social democrat by principle. Lindbeck was a central representative of the neo-Keynesian turn in economics after 1970. At the same time, he was a principled believer in the welfare state. This essay places Lindbeck, somewhat asymmetrically, in the context of two other Swedish economists: social democrat, eventually libertarian, Ingemar Ståhl, and trade union economist Gösta Rehn. My purpose in comparing these three economists is to examine the boundaries between an evolving social-democrat project and emergent neoliberal ideas. There were important connections of conversation, collaboration and friendship between these three actors. Yet they took different paths. The article proposes that understanding the relationship between social democracy and neoliberalism can be productively done through an emphasis on three things: the relationship between egalitarian objectives and economic instrumentalities in the social-democrat project, specific meeting points between social-democrat and neoliberal repertoires of ideas as proposed in the problem of the mixed economy, and the interplay of personal biographies and economic expertise.