Free-market economists were publicly branded as a priori deductivists since the Methodenstreit.

Evidence

Since the late nineteenthcentury Methodenstreit between the Austrian economist Carl Menger and the German economist Gustav von Schmoller, opponents of state intervention had been associated in the public mind with a belief that economic theory could be deduced from a priori principles. — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 408

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The Methodenstreit pitted inductive data gathering against deductive first-principles theory — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 60; The Austrian school’s deductive method crystallized in the Methodenstreit against German historicism — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 60