Like Hayek, Michael Polanyi perceived the obscure workings of economics as demanding both explanation and passivity. After his multiple trips to the Soviet Union as a chemist, he published a detailed study of Soviet statistics demonstrating the failure of the Communist Party to reach the objectives set by their plan. Despite its abysmal record, the genuine support of the population puzzled Polanyi, who spotted in the Soviet propaganda's displays of "public emotion" a "vivid form of social consciousness" which provided clear purpose and direction to the citizens. At the core of the desire for social revolution in Western societies, he concluded, brewed a frustration with the opacity of the market system, a lack of a refined grasp of its concealed mechanisms.

Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, loc. 69