Technocratic illusion and the dispute over the foundations of development

This text provides an in-depth analysis of the fundamental debate over the direction of civilizational development, epitomized by Nobel Prize winners Friedrich von Hayek and Gunnar Myrdal. The author exposes the so-called technocratic illusion—the false belief that society can be programmed like a machine, ignoring the dignity of the individual and the complexity of spontaneous market processes. The article introduces the concept of spontaneous order and explains the psychological mechanism of attribution error, which leads to overestimating the effectiveness of authoritarian regimes. By comparing the Scandinavian model with the German ordoliberal tradition, the author argues that it is not top-down planning but the rule of law, the capital of trust, and economic freedom that constitute the true foundations of sustainable progress. This is an important voice in the debate on the superiority of self-correcting systems over rigid social engineering.