Neoclassical economics replaced class analysis with individualistic merit narratives

Evidence

Today’s dominant theories are the result of academic and political battles that have lasted hundreds of years, with the aim of expelling the economic paradigm of the founding fathers of political economy. Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and Karl Marx studied capitalism through the lens of class and class conflict. Over the last century, this lens has been replaced by a gaze that substitutes classes with individuals and conflict with harmony. … Neoclassical economists have peddled the market society as one in which everyone, if rational and virtuous enough, can thrive. They claim that social hierarchies are reflections of individual merit, meaning that those who aren’t at the top don’t deserve to be. It is an argument that supports those in power very well. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 30

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains the historical displacement of political economy by ‘pure economics’, a core part of the book’s genealogy of how class discipline got hidden.
• XREF: The claim that meritocratic narratives rationalize hierarchy ‘supports those in power very well’ connects to Weber’s Protestant-ethic thesis and to sociological work on legitimation of stratification. — connects to: Bourgeois economists avoided totalizing models out of class instinct — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 374; Modern economics replaced the class-conflict lens of classical political economy with individualist harmony — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 30; Neoclassical economics depicts capitalism as idealized parody or fairy ballet — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 137 (+10 more)