Hayek distinguished trained-reactive engineers from system-building engineers

Evidence

Although Hayek disparaged the engineer in the sense of the scientist who believes she has sufficient overview of an entire system to build it herself, he praised the engineer in the sense of the train engineer, for reasons similar to Röpke’s. He wrote in 1945 that “the price system [is] a kind of machinery for registering change, or a system of telecommunications which enables individual producers to watch merely the movement of a few pointers, as an engineer might watch the hands of a few dials, in order to adjust their activities.” — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists, 771

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies Hayek’s two distinct senses of ‘engineer’ — the dangerous systems-builder vs. the desirable signal-responder.
• XREF: connects to: Hayek dropped anti-engineer rhetoric for political expediency, not principle — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 1920

Broader Connections

• Hayek dropped anti-engineer rhetoric for political expediency, not principle #expands (0.78) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 1920