As he emphasized in his inaugural lecture at the LSE, the way forward for liberals was to learn from the failures of free market rhetoric in order to initiate a long-term process of ideological change. He worried that the masses were deluded by the promise of reason and science to direct social reform. While the scientific economist cautioned against government interference, the layman demanded immediate change in society. The lack of legitimacy of a market economy lay precisely with the hidden nature of the economic problem—the invisibility of Adam Smith’s hand.

Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, loc. 67