„Hayek called Descartes’ application of engineering methods to society ‘scientism’ because it was the false application of methods from the natural sciences to the control of human beings.

False individualism asserted .. that most individuals suffered from such near-sightedness that all of their analyses concerned only the immediate effects of their principles. False individualism insisted that any organization of society must be consciously designed by a superior human mind. They idolized reason, but did not credit everyone with the ability to reason well. Only an elite group of scientists who reasoned appropriately could engineer society and would organize society according to scientific principles. All non-elites, the ‘masses’, would submit, by force if necessary. They would achieve material equality for the masses, but not allow the masses equality under the law with the elite. Any institution that might stand in the way of the will of the elite scientists would be crushed, especially the church. That resulted in the scrapping of all tradition built up over centuries and all religion. They allowed nothing to interfere with the elite’s direction of the masses.“

Roger McKinney