Property and Freedom Society, Bodrum 2025
Stanislav Andreski’s “Social Sciences as Sorcery” (1972): Known Errors, Deceptions, and Intellectual Corruption That Endure
Thorsten Polleit

1.

Thank you very much Gülcin and Hans for the invitation. It is a great pleasure to be here,

Good morning and welcome everybody!

The beginning of wisdom is knowing which questions to ask. So let’s give it a try.

How do you explain that roads are nationalized, that law and security are monopolized by the state (as we know it today)?

Why do you think central banks hold the money production monopoly?

And why do most people believe that something like “just taxes” could exist?

How come that people think socialism and communism were defeated and collapsed at the end of the 1990s, and that capitalism has triumphed?

Why do many people think it’s a conspiracy theory that globalists are working on a neo-socialist, neo-Marxist overthrow of the free society (or what little is left of it), aiming to establish a world state?

Let me ask you: How do confusions, absurdities or lies like these come about, and why do they persist?

Is it ignorance? Do people not know what’s happening, what political machinations are at play?

Or is it acceptance? Do people agree to it all because they expect some benefits from going along with it?

Let’s try to find answers to these questions. And to do so, we’ll start with Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973).

Mises pointed out that our actions, that human actions, are determined by ideas.

And so it’s no surprise that those seeking to influence their fellow poeple want to influence their ideas. This applies especially to the state (as we know it today).

The state—as Murray Rothbard defined it—is a territorial monopolist of coercion and violence with ultimate decision-making power over all conflicts in its territory, and it claims the right to levy taxes.

The state or its representatives can impose coercion and violence on their fellow humans in various ways, bossing them around and plundering them.

To do so, state or its representatives can use raw force. But that’s costly and not without danger to them.

Far more attractive for the state and its representatives is if people submit to them voluntarily, if they see the state as necessary, indispensable, even magnificent.

But how can such an acceptance be achieved?

One way is to corrupt the majority of the people, to buy their consent. For example, by taxing the comparatively few productive ones and sharing the loot with the comparatively many less productive ones.

But that already presupposes peoples’ consent to being ruled. To obtain this consent, the state and its friends literally target people’s heads.

Most importantly, the state pays intellectuals and opinion leaders, who then, on behalf of the state, convince them that the state is good and right.

Among these intellectuals and opinion leaders are, above all, the guild of economists. Most of them are on the state’s payroll. And so it’s no wonder that most of them approve of the state, especially not questioning its existence.

That modern economics serves as the state’s intellectual bodyguard is possible because economics has adopted a scientific method that allows them to do so.

Mainstream economists use the scientific method applied in the natural sciences, which, in turn, is built on positivism, empiricism, and falsificationism.

In short: Today’s economists formulate hypotheses (like “If we do A, then the result will be B” or “If A increases by x percent, then B changes by y percent”) and then subject them to data tests.

But if economics is conceived and practiced this way, namely as an empirical science, serious problems inevitably arise.

For one can never justify true statements from observing, measuring, or testing. With them, one can only say that something was this or that way in the past. They can never show that it couldn’t have been otherwise.

Example: Until the end of the 17th century, people thought all swans were white. In 1697, black swans were discovered in Australia. And with that one observation, all the many previous observations that swans were white proved false.

From experience, one cannot, for logical reasons, confirm or refute the truth value of a theory.

Moreover, it must be noted that in the realm of human action, no homogenous observations can be made, as is common in the natural sciences, say in laboratory experiments.

The reason: Humans are capable of learning. They change their goals, preferences, assessments of suitable means to achieve their goals. In economics, available data do not allow us to derive laws or regularities from them.

One must conclude: The positivist-empirical-falsificationist scientific method is entirely unsuitable for economics. It cannot produce reliable knowledge.

Worse still: In practice, it proves to be a Trojan horse through which false and even dangerous, bad and sinister ideas can be sent into our world, smuggled right into peoples’ heads.

2.

And that brings me to Stanislav Andreski, who published the book “Social Sciences as Sorcery. Abuse, Fashion, and Manipulation of a Science” in 1972.

Andreski (a polish sociologist, born 1919, died 2007) sharply questions the scientific integrity of the social sciences, exposing how social science is impaired and corrupted by ideological bias, careerism, and sycophancy.

Andreski criticizes how the excessive use of complicated vocabulary often serves to inflate simple or banal ideas and conceal weaknesses in argumentation.

He shows how social science trends are often influenced by fashions and political agendas rather than objective analysis (gender studies come to mind).

According to Andreski, the social sciences produce hardly any new insights but recycle existing concepts in new packaging.

With the word “Sorcerers” in the book title, Andreski alludes to the similarity between the mystifying practices of the social sciences and magical rituals meant to impress the uninitiated without delivering solid results.

The book is not only a timeless and cutting critique of the academic world and remains relevant for discussions on scientific integrity. It also provides an explanation for why the Western world has seen such unchecked growth in academic institutions and their personnel.

Anyone reading Andreski will immediately recognize the self-serving benefits, especially for economists, of doggedly and uncritically applying the scientific method of natural science.

For if, as an economist, one applies the natural science method, one can with impunity question the most proven insights, even true statements, and go in bed with any political fashion and ideology. Why?

Because according to this method, all knowledge is always only hypothetical, never apodictically true. One can then, for example, claim: “If the money supply is expanded, prosperity rises.”

Or: “If one uses state fiat money, growth and employment will be higher than with gold money.” Or: “If one introduces democracy, people will enjoy self-determination.” And so on.

In this way, mainstream economists provide the perfect platform to test these and other promises in practice. Under the motto: “You’ll see, it will work!” Who would refuse to try out such appealing salvation promises?

And when the beautiful promises don’t come true (expanding the money supply causes not prosperity but inflation, socialism brings not equality and freedom but inequality and unfreedom), economists can easily immunize themselves against criticism.

They say there were other influencing factors that prevented the predicted outcome; and in the next attempt, they’ll account for those factors, and then it will surely work! And so the false theory isn’t exposed as false, as an illusion, as a lie.

And if politics can invoke such “scientific” support (which it isn’t), then anti-freedom ideologies can be implemented, and a largely clueless population won’t be able to mount resistance.

Essentially, today’s social and economic sciences have internalized the method of the German Historical School, as once advocated by Gustav Schmoller (1838–1917) or his predecessors Wilhelm G. F. Roscher (1817–1894), Bruno Hildebrand (1812–1878), Karl G. A. Knies (1821–1898).

Historicism denies universal, time-invariant laws or regularities in the field of human action.

3.

It should have become clear: Choosing the wrong scientific method in economics is something like the greatest conceivable intellectual disaster.

Epistemologically, the confusion and aberration can fortunately be brought to light and resolved. And that is what I will do now, introducing the concepts of a posteriori knowledge and a priori knowledge.

An a posteriori statement is one that provides us with experience-dependent knowledge. For example: The stove plate is hot, and I know that because I touched it earlier. Or: The central bank lowered interest rates, and I noticed a rise in stock prices.

A posteriori knowledge is, however, interpretation-dependent: Observations don’t speak for themselves; they must be interpreted.

An a priori statement is of an entirely different quality. It is experience-independent and true, claiming universal validity. One cannot deny it without presupposing its validity, thereby causing a logical contradiction.

An example is the law of contradiction from logic: It cannot be the case that A, and at the same time the case that not-A.

Ludwig von Mises’s great achievement was recognizing and spelling out economics as an a priori science of human action.

He unequivocally stated that there are true, indisputable statements and knowledge in the realm of human action:

Humans act, and their action is purposeful; Actors must employ means to achieve their ends; means are scarce; human action requires time; time is a means and thus scarce; action implies cause and effect (causality); human action also implies time preference and the originary interest—both cannot be eliminated, are always and everywhere present where there is human action; profit and loss, cost and yield are also logically grounded in the logic of human action.

The scientific method that employs the logic of human action provides us with a priori knowledge: True statements, independent of time and place.

For example, we know with apodictic certainty that

—voluntary exchange benefits all participants, creates a win-win situation; that coerced exchange is a win-lose, meaning one party improves at the expense of the other.

Or: We know that money originated in the free market from a commodity; and that unbacked paper money, or fiat money, could not have arisen voluntarily—it must have been introduced and must be maintained by coercion and violence.

Or: The state (as we know it today) could not have arisen from a voluntary agreement. Rather, it was established by coercion and violence and is kept alive by those means.

Or: The state (as we know it today) always grows larger and becomes more powerful; it cannot be contained. As Hans Hermann Hoppe puts it succinctly: “(E)very minimal government has the inherent tendency to become a maximal government.”

Or: It is no surprise that the state has monopolized money production; that it wants to abolish cash and introduce central bank digital money.

Or: Issuing fiat money through credit creation leads to overconsumption and capital misallocation, causing boom and bust.

Or: Expanding the money supply in the economy leads to a decrease in the purchasing power of the money unit—compared to a situation where the money supply wasn’t expanded.

Or: The statement that increasing the money supply makes an economy richer is logically false.

All this and more can be known with certainty. We do not need observations or tests to find out their truth value. A priori knowledge is true, its validity does not depend on experience.

4.

But a priori knowledge has been de facto displaced from modern economics—as I said: mainstream economists have conceptualized economics as an empirical science.

Errors, deceptions, and intellectual corruption in the social and economic sciences thus have not only become possible but can also be perpetuated.

All this has long been well known and thoroughly analyzed, not only by sociologists like Stanislav Andreski but above all by representatives of the Austrian School of Economics.

The fact that certain errors, deceptions, and intellectual corruption in economics endure is no coincidence; it’s systematic. And here is my explanation why that is.

Modern socialists-communists no longer primarily rely on bloody, physically violent revolution, as at the beginning of the 20th century.

Instead, their new attempt at overthrow relies on deceiving people, lying to them, confusing them, planting untruths in their heads, depriving them of their judgment.

The socialist assault relies heavily on “doublethink,” as George Orwell described it in his novel 1984: The ruling caste tries to undermine and suspend the laws of logic. To do this, two contradictory or mutually exclusive beliefs are maintained and both accepted.

It’s not hard to give current examples of such doublethink, that have become widely accepted:

—It is said that the state (as we know it today) protects property and ensures freedom—although it destroys property and freedom.

—Or: Social ills (like economic crises, inflation, poverty in old age, etc.) are caused by capitalism, although there is no capitalism in the world, but rather interventionism or semi-socialism.

—Or: Democracy is touted to people as a system of freedom—although democracy (understood as majority decision) is incompatible with individual freedom.

Or: It is widely believed that central banks fight inflation. This is not true. Central banks cause inflation—sometimes they cause high, sometimes low inflation, but they never fight inflation.

As already said: The state deliberately uses social and economic sciences for its purposes; at least the mainstream economist profession has made sure that it works in the best interest of the state and its friends (including themselves).

Scientists who view and practice social and economic science as experiential sciences are promised rewards: secure positions, prestige, and generous pensions.

Those who don’t play along, who understand and teach economics as an a priori science of human action, face resistant, even exclusion.

5.

To rid the social sciences of errors, deceptions, and intellectual corruption, one might think of appealing to economists’ thirst for truth, or introducing ethical standards.

Or one might demand privatizing education, organizing school and university via the free market—literally barring the state from getting into people’s heads.

However, this wouldn’t get to the root of the problem. Recall that striving to determine people’s ideas is a highly effective instrument of domination: Whoever determines people’s ideas determines their actions.

It must be expected that not only the state (as we know it today), but also special interest groups (like Big Pharma, Big Tech, Big Banking, Big Food, or the World Economic Forum, the United Nations, etc.) and even openly criminal groups (like the mafia), would seek to determine their fellow humans’ ideas to achieve their own ends. They all have strong incentives to win over and harness science for themselves.

What needs to be done? Well, effective resistance against the abuse of science, its false teachings, deceptions and lies doesn’t come from above but from the individual.

That’s how the philosopher of Enlightenment, Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), saw it—essentially putting the individual centre-state.

Kant urged his fellow humans to overcome their laziness and cowardice and think for themselves. He believed it possible for people to enlighten themselves or be enlightened if there is “free speech.”

Enlightened people judge truth claims themselves. They don’t blindly rely on authorities (teachers, professors, chancellors, presidents, etc.) but consult their own reason, seeking advice if needed from other rational people.

Mises, however, seems to have been pessimistic that a Kantian enlightenment would work. In his 1944 memoirs (p. 42), he wrote:

“Must one not consider the attempt to lead the masses on the right path hopeless, when one has experienced that men like J. M. Keynes, Bertrand Russell, Harold Laski, and Albert Einstein could not comprehend economic problems?”

But one doesn’t have to rely on economic education to truly enlighten people, as Mises thought. Fortunately, it is much simpler.

In fact, all it takes is understanding a very simple statement, understandable to everyone (who is in his right mind).

And here it is:

There are only two ways we as human beings can interact: Voluntariness or coercion and violence.

I repeat: There are only two ways we humans can interact: Voluntariness or coercion and violence.

An example of voluntariness: I offer you an apple for 1 USD, and you accept my offer if you like, or reject it as you wish.

An example of coercion and violence: I force you to buy my apple for 1 USD, and if you refuse, punishment, pain, and suffering threaten you.

The free market is an expression of voluntariness. It leads to “win-win.”

The state (as we know it today) with its taxes, regulations, fiat money, etc. is an expression of coercion and violence.

The state does not stand on the ground of “voluntariness”; it stands on the ground of “coercion and violence.”

Most people (I suspect) prefer voluntariness over coercion and violence.

But regardless of whether my suspicion is right or wrong: Anyone who affirms or denies the statement “There is either voluntariness or coercion and violence” presupposes voluntariness, i.e., the freedom of the individual (to use one’s body according to one’s wishes). Otherwise, they couldn’t even make the affirmation or denial.

If someone says, some form of coercion and violence must exist (for him or others) to make voluntariness possible—, then he effectively makes an argument against voluntariness. For limited, reduced voluntariness is (logically speaking) something other than voluntariness; it is not voluntariness.

Either there is voluntariness (the freedom of the individual), or there isn’t (the individual is unfree). There is no middle ground.

In fact, one doesn’t even need to strive to justify voluntariness, the freedom of the individual. For one cannot convincingly justify the opposite:

Whoever questions that the freedom of the individual must be restricted (whether partially or entirely) presupposes the freedom of the individual as valid, as necessary, at least for himself; denying that would be a logical contradiction, or: sheer nonsense.

6.

And so I come to the conclusion. Stanislav Andreski could hardly have chosen a more apt book title: Social Sciences as Sorcery. Abuse, Fashion, and Manipulation of a Science.

I hope I could show that the abusive choice of the scientific method in economics can be held responsible for known errors, deceptions, and intellectual corruption, which can moreover persist for a very long time.

And that the most effective counter to the destructive ideologies of unfreedom that have infiltrated the Western world is a priori thinking, a priori knowledge—especially in economics.

Whoever consistently explores today’s world with a priori thinking will clearly see and expose the errors, deceptions, and intellectual corruption for which the social and economic sciences are responsible.

A priori knowledge unmistakeably reveals that the Western world is on the ways towards socialism, or a new form of fascism; and that the Great Reset, green policy, net zero, woke-ism, degrowth and deindustrialisation are means to that end.

Having said that, a priori knowledge should be considered the sharpest weapon in the fight for freedom, against socialism and its destructive impact on human civilization.

And for all who think that’s too simple a conclusion, I would like to end with a quote from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: “People are annoyed that the truth is so simple; they should consider that they still have enough trouble applying it practically for their benefit.”

Thank you very much for your attention!