Fascist-era economists saw their models as Platonic truths to impose on reality

Evidence

Pure economics aspired to be something like the Platonic form of social inquiry. Just as ideas for Plato were the authentic essence of existing phenomena, so too economic ideas were more real than reality itself. Th ey were the true model, the archetype that reality played out. Its selfdescribed “purity” did not stem from a detachment from the real world; to the contrary, economics had an undeniable and practical end game. Like Plato’s philosopher, the economist had to return to the cave and rescue the unenlightened from their ignorance. Th e four professors had as their ambition to eradicate the impurities of the real world so that it would conform to the purity of their mathematical models. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1116

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains the Platonic-epistemology self-conception underpinning neoclassical purity claims.
• XREF: Connects to modern technocratic governance debates and how economist-modelers treat reality as noise against elegant theory. — connects to: Financial economists simultaneously defend models while accepting they are surely false descriptions of reality. — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial…, 1121; The economists’ classless models concealed openly classist beliefs — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 1306; Fascist Italy gave economists the rare chance to enforce their models on society — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 1303 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Fascist and liberal economists both endorsed rule by apolitical experts #corroborates (0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1171
• Economic theories function as analytic engines rather than exact copies of reality. #contradicts (0.85)
• The four economists’ models made capital rather than labor the economic engine #expands (0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1124
• Colonial knowledge treats Orientals as a fixed Platonic essence #corroborates (0.80) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 122
• Fascism replaces blind market mechanisms with conscious domination #complicates (0.75) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 560