The challenge of “Bernalism,” and its continuous influence during World War II, vastly influenced the orientation of neoliberalism. Epistemological battles around the scientific method reverberated as a political and ideological argument over the best form of government. The formative political activities of neoliberals during the 1930s were chiefly set against natural scientists promoting socialism and planning as the logical extrapolation of a scientific worldview and organization. They are set to show that the scientific community, far from embodying an archetypal communist society, represented, on the contrary, the incarnation of a liberal order guided by the scientific method.

Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, loc. 78