Economists responded to the 2008 crisis by manufacturing doubt and delay rather than clarity.

Evidence

We need to wait for the verdict of future historians to get some sort of standard narrative, but it seems that the first vote on TARP was conducted in the face of sketchy and incomplete economic notions. My point in this section is to suggest that economists did not help clarify the situation, but instead swooped in to pump more doubt into an already baffling predicament—and that is the essence of agnotology. Clearly, most orthodox economists were flummoxed by the mere onset of the crisis, but a few neoliberal economists at the University of Chicago had the presence of mind to gear up the think-tank network of the thought collective in order to sign a petition calling for a flat-out rejection of the rescue package, and counseling pure delay on taking any action whatsoever. (Delay and stasis was a major agnotological objective in disputes over CFCs, tobacco smoke, and global warming.) The petition, arranged by the Chicago economists John Cochrane and Luigi Zingales, essentially preached delay, due to the precept that, as the text stated, “Investors who took risks to earn profits must also bear the losses. Not every business failure carries systemic risk. The government can ensure a well-functioning financial industry, able to make new loans to creditworthy borrowers, without bailing out particular investors and institutions whose choices proved unwise.” The capacity of the Russian doll to mobilize the thought collective was demonstrated by the ability of the organizers to deliver the petition with the signatures of more than one hundred economists to the media on September 24. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 637

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines agnotology as the deliberate production of doubt in baffling situations, here applied to the economic crisis.
• XREF: Connects to the tobacco/CFC delay tactics literature (Oreskes & Conway’s Merchants of Doubt), which Mirowski explicitly invokes. — connects to: Economists responded to the Queen’s question with denial of institutional failure. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 442; Economists had no consensus explanation for the 2008 financial crisis — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 448; Economists obscuring knowledge during crisis stems from contradicting logics of expertise and market faith — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 655 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Mainstream economists admit failure to predict the crisis but resist overhauling the discipline #complicates (0.85) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 517
• Economists obscuring knowledge during crisis stems from contradicting logics of expertise and market faith #expands (0.80) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 655
• Economists had no consensus explanation for the 2008 financial crisis #complicates (0.75) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 448
• Leading orthodox economists could not agree on the crisis’s actual causes #complicates (0.75) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 809