Neoliberalism owes its scientific imagination to the strong contingent of philosophers of science who participated in its elaboration. Michael Polanyi, Alfred Schutz, Felix Kaufmann, Karl Popper, Ludwig von Mises, and F. A. Hayek, among others, were all refugees and exiles from Austria and Hungary who were immersed in the scientific world and volatile political situation of the interwar period. They unanimously perceived the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire as a disaster, responsible for the rise of an antagonistic politics pitting nationalism and conservatism against the growing communist movement. At that time, Vienna underwent one of the most radical municipal experiments of the twentieth century with the large-scale social policies promoted by the Austrian Socialist Party.

Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, loc. 57