Manufactured doubt need not be consciously willed to paralyze economic reform

Evidence

I am not the first to suspect this. Even a few respected orthodox economists have sometimes entertained notions that “there is the possibility that moneyed interests could manufacture controversy through think tanks, as has happened with aspects of climate change debate.” Unfortunately, they then underestimate the extent to which the economics profession has become beholden to neoliberal institutions, and indeed, the possibility that garden-variety disagreement, which might happen under any other circumstances, gets amplified and phase-shifted to produce its real objective, the paralysis of serious reform of the economy. The beauty is that the economics profession as a corporate entity need not consciously will the resulting manufacture of doubt. Just add the reflex conservatism which kicks in with cognitive dissonance, and we have a perfect prescription for agnogenesis. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 670

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces ‘agnogenesis’ as a key concept: the deliberate manufacture of ignorance. This appears to be a recurring term in the book.
• XREF: Connects to the climate-change denial literature (Oreskes & Conway’s Merchants of Doubt) which documents the same manufacture-of-doubt playbook. — connects to: Economic ideas can blind policymakers to the flaws of their institutional designs — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 252; Manufactured doubt deployed by agnotologists also operates inside economics — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 669; Climate denial trades on manufactured doubt, not persuasion of scientists — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 927 (+4 more)