Bernard A. Weisberger and Marshall I. Steinberg quote from a draft of the founding document of the American Economic Association

We regard the state as an educational and ethical agency whose positive aid is an indispensable condition of human progress. While we recognize the necessity of individual initiative in industrial life, we hold that the doctrine of laissez-faire is unsafe in politics and unsound in morals; and that it suggests an inadequate explanation of the relations between the state and the citizens.

We do not accept the final statements which characterized the political economy of a past generation. . . . We hold that the conflict of labor and capital has brought to the front a vast number of social problems whose solution is impossible without the united efforts of Church, state, and science.

They note that in the final version, the phrase “the doctrine of laissez-faire is unsafe in politics and unsound in morals” was removed. Their narrative (interesting throughout) laments the decline of left-wing radicalism in the AEA since the early days.

Thomas C. Leonard’s Illiberal Reformers covers the same ground, from a much less sympathetic perspective. About that book, the authors write,

Leonard argues that these views are central to, and thus taint, his [AEA founder Richard Ely] scholarship and those of his academic disciples. But Ely’s views were by no means unique among many intellectuals of his time, including those, like Godkin, who were his staunchest opponents, and those views certainly don’t invalidate the rest of his thinking. Above all, he considered himself an advocate for workers against exploitation by economic elites. Certainly, the set of people for whom he advocated is much narrower than would be the case among self-described progressives today. In those days, just as now, the interests of workers in developed countries were often pitted against those even more unfortunate than themselves, and consequently, many workers and their advocates supported what were in effect restrictions on labor supply in order to reduce their competition. The chief target of Ely’s scholarship and advocacy was the hegemony of free-market economics, against which he offered a vision of contending interests vying for shares of the pie, a contest in which bargaining power determined all.

I am only a little way into Leonard’s book, and I may only skim it. He uses the phrase “reform as vocation” to describe Ely’s cohort. That is, they professionalized the role of the progressive policy advocate. The economist became the scientific expert, based in academia, properly credentialed, who would be called on by political leaders for advice to better engineer the economic system.

From Weisberger and Steinberg’s point of view, the reformers are genuine, while their opponents are merely tools of the existing order. They certainly would fail an ideological Turing test. My guess is that Leonard would fail also, although not nearly as badly.