The Future Will Not Be Calculated: Neural Nets, Neoliberalism, and Reactionary Politics Orit Halpern In 1945, the economist Friedrich Hayek began his battle on behalf of neo- liberalism with a call to rethink knowledge. In an essay that looms large over the history of contemporary conservative and libertarian economic thought, Hayek inaugurated a new concept of the market: The peculiar character of the problem of a rational economic order is determined precisely by the fact that the knowledge of the circum- stances of which we must make use never exists in concentrated or integrated form, but solely as the dispersed bits of incomplete and frequently contradictory knowledge which all the separate individuals possess. The economic problem of society is thus not merely a prob- lem of how to allocate “given” resources—if “given” is taken to mean given to a single mind which deliberately solves the problem set by these “data.” It is rather a problem of how to secure the best use of resources known to any of the members of society, for ends whose relative importance only these individuals know. Or, to put it briefly, it is a problem of the utiliza- tion of knowledge not given to anyone in its totality. 1 This was no small claim. When situated within the broader context of Hayek’s engagements with the sciences and technologies of the time, this seemingly I want to thank the generous comments and editorial assistance of the Critical Inquiry board, Patrick Jagoda, Hank Scotch, Leif Weatherby, and Jeffrey Kirkland. This article is greatly indebted to my work with Robert Mitchell who helped develop many of these ideas. This re- search is supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation, Sinergia Grant, Governing through Design. 1. Friedrich Hayek, “The Use of Knowledge in Society,” American Economic Review 35 (Sept. 1945): 519–20; my emphasis; hereafter abbreviated “UK.” Critical Inquiry, volume 48, number 2, Winter 2022. © 2022 The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. Published by The University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.1086/717313 Correction: This article was reposted on 21 December 2021 to change “supported” to “didn’t support” in the sentence, “For neoliberals, the conspiratorial and paranoic style of populist democratic politics, associated with fascism and communism, didn’t support ‘free’ markets.”