On the one hand, neoliberals argued, any theory of historical development wrongfully applied lawful assumptions to the contingency of history, thereby confusing prophecy and prediction, and mistaking explanation by general principles with the knowledge of deliberate direction. On the other hand, engineers and planners suffered from a "slavish imitation of the method and language of Science" which they used for the purpose of "social midwifery." By denying the fundamental uncertainty in social processes, and the logical impossibility of controlling social wholes, Polanyi contended that their mentality veered towards "utopian engineering," and was the inspiration for "grandiose planning." The application of statistics and mathematics to social problems was inadequate because of epistemological complications linked with the use of probabilities for predictions. To Rougier, "social engineering" and the use of econometrics amounted to a "technocratic conceit," whose method "to put everything into equations" was stimulated by a metaphysical belief in universal determinism incompatible with the fundamental indeterminacy found at the atomic level.

Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, loc. 84