Criticizing this approach, the French economist Gilles Saint-Paul argues that the growing influence of the behavioral and social sciences on policy-making might lead to a "tyranny of utility." Referring to F. A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, he describes economics as the guardian of individual liberty and the values of the Enlightenment. Recent developments, he suggests, threaten these ideals: "If current trends continue, I foresee a gradual elimination of individual freedom as 'social science' makes progress in documenting behavioral biases, measuring happiness, and evaluating the effects of coercive policies." Whereas Hayek feared social democracy, communism, and National Socialism, Saint-Paul sees tyranny lurking in present-day behavioral policy. Neoliberal critics of state interventionism echo this rejection. In 2014, for example, when Angela Merkel announced the creation of a government unit on behavioral policy (catching up on a development that had already taken place in most other Western countries), Mont Pèlerin Society member Philip Plickert immediately rejected the idea as driven by a paternalistic intrusion into private lives.

Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, loc. 313