Hayek treated belief in market superiority as an article of faith, not rational demonstration.

Evidence

Hayek tipped his hand on his own approach to a general philosophy of neoliberalism when he said in the discussion of the MPS session on April 4: “Does liberalism presuppose some set of values which are commonly accepted as faith and in themselves not capable of rational demonstration?” (MPS archives, 1947 meeting). It seems clear from his later writings that he believed this was true about belief in the superiority of market organization itself. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 1887

Categorization

• QUESTION: Does this Nietzschean/Wittgensteinian admission sit uneasily with the later neoliberal claim to be the party of science and reason?
• XREF: Connects to the ‘thought collective’ theme of this book and the MPS closed-society analysis on p. 1890. — connects to: Hayek rejected utility maximization in favor of knowledge dispersion as the market’s justification — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 1926; Early Chicago economists favored regulated capitalism out of skepticism, not market faith. — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 108; Hayek endorsed religious submission as a tool for market order despite his own agnosticism — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 123

Broader Connections

• Hayek rejected utility maximization in favor of knowledge dispersion as the market’s justification #corroborates (0.75) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 1926
• Early Chicago economists favored regulated capitalism out of skepticism, not market faith. #corroborates (0.72) — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 108