Rougier’s real foe, however, was not so much rationalism as a philosophical system than as a political doctrine. He contended that the spirit and ideas of the French Revolution, originating in classical rationalism, had ended up “par une sorte de logique immanente” in egalitarian socialism. For Rougier, political principles merely represented useful conventions suggested by experience. Any philosophical attempt to naturalize or rationalize these axioms must employ a metaphysical discourse that is ultimately unsubstantiated.

Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, loc. 63