Markets gained legitimacy as experts lost it after 2008

Evidence

Neoliberal reason thus bolstered (rather than undermined) a renewal of the Protestant ethic of “asceticism,” with paradoxically reverse effects on the legitimacy of experts (who were rejected for their duplicitous espousal of marketization policies) and that of markets (which were respected for their upfront, if unapologetic, pursuits of capital accumulation). Thus, even as experts, political elites, and publics entered into new conflicts around neoliberalism’s broken promises, markets and publics did not part ways. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 113

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: This splits the usual ‘anti-elite’ story in two: publics rejected experts but not markets, because markets were admired for being honest about greed — a subtle reframing of what anti-establishment sentiment actually targets.
• XREF: Echoes the ‘immodesty’ moral-panic essay theme: like dress-codes, culpability is distributed by perceived hypocrisy/upfrontness, not actual harm. — connects to: The market replaced law as the source of state truth and legitimacy — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 98; Efficient-markets theorists treated the 2008 crash as confirming their doctrine — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 494; The 2008 crisis invalidated the preceding thirty years of financial orthodoxy — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 133 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• The 2008 crisis discredited efficient-market economists in public policy debate #corroborates (0.90) — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 158
• The market replaced law as the source of state truth and legitimacy #expands (0.85) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 98
• Post-2008 economists saw speculation’s irrationality as recalibrating politics #expands (0.80) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 97
• The 2008 crisis invalidated the preceding thirty years of financial orthodoxy #corroborates (0.78) — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 133
• Severe financial crises trigger a loss of trust in markets #qualifies (0.75)
• Efficient-markets theorists treated the 2008 crash as confirming their doctrine #contradicts (0.72) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 494
• 2008’s crisis installed speculation as the defining modern economic subjectivity #expands (0.72) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 25
• Economic theory helped restore legitimacy to banned financial derivatives #complicates (0.72) — Donald MacKenzie & Yuval Millo, Constructing a Market, Performing Theory, 9