Wartime neoliberals attacked applied natural-science planning as ‘scientism’ without attacking science itself

Evidence

During the Second World War, the polemical use of the term “scientism” by Hayek complemented Popper’s refutation of “historicist” doctrines, Polanyi’s defense of pure science, Lippmann’s call for the restoration of a “liberal science,” and Rougier’s dichotomy of doctrine and mystique. Each demonstrated that liberal principles were concomitant with the proper view of science while a purely instrumental conception served the goals of collectivist ideologies. … The opacity of the “sense-data” in the social sciences made its methods and orientation different than those of the natural sciences, because it could only observe man’s actions—and their undesigned results—without accessing the inner realm of consciousness. Opinions, they believed, constituted the genuine “facts” of the social sciences. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 83

Categorization

• XREF: This ‘scientism’ polemic connects to earlier chapters mapping the Mont Pèlerin Society’s intellectual lineage against Popper and logical empiricism. — connects to: Early neoliberalism positioned scientists as exemplars of liberal order, not communism — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 78; Neoliberalism crystallized partly as opposition to scientists promoting planned socialism; Neoliberals rejected technocratic social engineering as utopian and falsely deterministic — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 84

Broader Connections

• Neoliberalism crystallized partly as opposition to scientists promoting planned socialism #expands (0.85)
• Neoliberals rejected technocratic social engineering as utopian and falsely deterministic #expands (0.82) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 84