Hayek dropped anti-engineer rhetoric for political expediency, not principle

Evidence

Hayek entertained the possibility of blaming “the engineers” for the frustration of the neoliberal project in his Counterrevolution of Science (1952), but subsequently came around to the position that it was politically unwise to demonize such a powerful constituency in the twentieth-century economy. See Mirowski, “Naturalizing the Market.” — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 1920

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing: what exactly made engineers such a powerful constituency in mid-century economies, and how did the embrace of technocratic expertise trade off against anti-intellectualism?
• XREF: connects to: Friedman deliberately used unqualified rhetoric while Hayek stayed aloof from politics — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 559; Hayek’s public image was constructed by political appropriation, not his own text — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 228; Hayek distinguished trained-reactive engineers from system-building engineers — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the…, 771 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Hayek rejected ideological purity tests among the Society’s members #complicates (0.75) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1451