Economists, he determined, were "entirely neutral between ends." Their role was to determine how to pursue predetermined goals with the greatest possible effi ciency. … Robbins's advice, to the extent that it was followed, served as a rhetorical straitjacket. Po liti cal debate, particularly in times of duress, relies heavily on the invocation of norms. Economists who adopt a selfdenying ordinance in regard to discussions of philosophical ends limit their public speech on economic matters to the discursive realm of technocratic expertise. As progressive reformers had discovered a generation earlier, the hold of scientifi c effi ciency on the pop u lar imagination is not strong.

Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, loc. 125