Under the leadership of J. D. Bernal, P. M. S. Blackett, Joseph Needham, and Lancelot Hogben, the “social relations of science movement” put forward a fuller integration of society, industry, and science, in which the latter, rationally planned and emancipated from capitalism, would fulfil its natural object of serving human welfare. They adopted the conclusion of Soviet scientists that “only in a socialist society will science genuinely belong to all mankind.” Capitalism, they thought, had led to a scientific regression, introducing competition between researchers “when what is really needed is more science applied to the convenience of living instead of to profit-making.” Bernal, their most vocal spokesperson, denounced liberalism as the method of chaos, “spontaneously grown,” hindering the use of knowledge in society because innovation was corrupted by private profiteering. On the contrary, communism as a political system bore the closest resemblance to the collaborative method used by researchers.

Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, loc. 77