Lippmann held that no science of society can ground conscious control

Evidence

Commending Polanyi as an “exceptionally gifted observer,” Walter Lippmann reflected on the same theme in the opening chapters of his book The Good Society, published in 1937. The complexity of social life appeared to him as an invisible canvas into which our daily interactions were woven. The opacity of the individual psyche veiled a wealth of knowledge which the market artfully and efficiently coordinated. Complete planning, by bringing all the economic processes to the fore, failed to acknowledge the cognitive economy brought forth spontaneously by the division of labor. Once the intrinsic limitations of thought were established, conscious control over social orders became a delusion. “No human mind has ever understood the whole scheme of society,” wrote Lippmann, “at best a mind can understand its own version of this scheme, something much thinner, which bears to reality some such relations as a silhouette to a man.” The opacity of society to our efforts of scientific probing had become so overwhelming that no science of society could form the basis of its conscious control. Consequently, the legitimacy of the market economy relied on entrenching these invisible processes within public opinion. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 71

Categorization

• DEFINE: Useful statement of the epistemic-humility core of 1930s market-liberal thought: society is opaque, markets coordinate distributed knowledge, and legitimacy must flow through public opinion.
• XREF: Lippmann’s The Good Society connects to the book’s earlier chapters on the Lippmann Colloque and the founding of the Mont Pelerin Society. — connects to: Denying conscious control is itself a moral position of nonaccountability — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 315; No simple trick can change another person’s worldview against their will — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice: How to Communicate…, 8

Broader Connections

• Denying conscious control is itself a moral position of nonaccountability #complicates (0.80) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 315
• No simple trick can change another person’s worldview against their will #corroborates (0.75) — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 8