25 Such diffusion was a disaster, since science was properly an elite activity: “there are at most fourteen really first class men in any field, and more commonly there are about six.” See Stigler, The Intellectual, 37. This followed straightforwardly from his elitist views about human abilities: “there are natural differences in the quality of both men and acres, unlikely to be eliminated under any social system.” See Stigler, Essays, 280. Egalitarianism was a sin against nature, and a sin against science.

Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, loc. 770