ABSTRACT
A central feature of neoliberal thought is the twin claim that first, markets are
more efficient at resource allocation than centralised government planning, and
second, that central planning leads to infringements on the freedom of indivi-
duals. The first argument is often justified through Hayek’s ‘problem of knowl-
edge’ – the problem of co-ordinating all the diverse knowledge required for
central decision-making. This connection between markets, co-ordination and
knowledge has apparently become a deeply-held belief, even on the part of some
left-leaning academics (Wainwright 1994; Hodgson 1999). This chapter chal-
lenges this connection by suggesting that its history reveals the social and political
context for two significant and related intellectual inventions – Hayek’s ‘problem
of knowledge’ and Michael Polanyi’s ‘tacit knowledge’. These inventions will
both be shown as politically-motivated intellectual devices, as opposed to the
reasoned advancement of thought. The story emerged during my research into
the relationships between the history of computing and the parallel changes in
social, economic and political theory.1 One part of that research entailed unco-
vering exactly how ‘knowledge’ had come to be seen as an entity that could be
studied and managed to such an extent that people would start talking about
‘managing knowledge’, and about a ‘knowledge economy’ or a ‘knowledge
society’ (see Hull 2000a, b).
