Neoliberals selectively attacked intellectuals they disagreed with while keeping their own expertise.

Evidence

Attacks on “intellectuals” were a common refrain in the history of Mont Pèlerin and were not restricted to Hayek. See, for instance, Hartwell (1995, 161); Friedman (1962, 8). But of course the neoliberals don’t renounce all expertise—just the stuff they don’t like, as explained in this chapter, and in Mirowski (2007; Forthcoming b). — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 2166

Categorization

• XREF: This selective anti-intellectualism prefigures the current anti-expert populism that mixes with expert-driven technocracy — a tension worth exploring. — connects to: Neoliberal anti-intellectualism dates back to Hayek’s 1949 attack on intellectuals — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 927; Stigler believed intellectuals manufacture social problems by denouncing them persistently. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 111; Neoliberal intellectuals distrusted business leaders and sought to reeducate them — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 88 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Neoliberals understood the organizational nature of knowledge better than their critics did #expands (0.85) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 2117
• Neoliberal authors produce obfuscating scholarship that disguises the movement’s own practices #expands (0.83) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 1821
• Neoliberalism operates through systematic contradiction and disavowal of its own practices #expands (0.82) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 81