Stigler held that science and markets work by the same organizing principles

Evidence

If bringing the good deeds of businesspeople to the attention of intellectuals was insufficient to convince them to reexamine their attitudes, then perhaps closer scrutiny of the deep similarities between the marketplace and the intellectual world would do the trick: “The organizing principles of [the marketplace and intellectual world] are the same … Just as real markets have some fraud and monopoly, which impair the claims for the marketplace, so the intellectual world has its instances of coercion and deception, with the coercion exercised by claques and fashion. But again these deviants are outside the logic of the system.” Stigler continued, “the analogies could be pursued much further,” and so one should not read too much into his apparent distinction between “real” markets and the intellectual world. Of course, one could certainly dispute his characterization of monopoly as ruled out by some universal “logic of the [market] system”—many economists of his day would have. Nevertheless, for Stigler, the rationality of science and the effectiveness of the market for goods and services were due to the same organizational principles. Hence, intellectuals should regard the marketplace favorably. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 119

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies Stigler’s ‘marketplace of ideas’ argument — that science’s rationality and market efficiency share one logic, so intellectuals should favor markets.
• XREF: connects to: Stigler argued markets and intellectual inquiry share identical organizing principles. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 119