Neoclassical economists are the zombies, not the neoliberals themselves

Evidence

However, there is one concise explanation of this history that no PhD economist would deign to entertain, although we shall insist it be kept on the table for the duration of this book. It is the proposition that Quiggin turned out to be half-right: it is not just that a few component models found in economics are zombiefied; rather, it is the neoclassical tradition as a whole that is approximating the walking undead, and has been lurching around that way for a while. Patently, this begins to get at why no amount of heterodox brickbats (or incisive reasoning) can halt its inexorable march. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 66 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Returning to our point of departure in this section, it really will turn out to be of paramount importance to keep the thought collectives of “neoclassical economics” and neoliberalism separate and distinct, for analytical purposes of understanding the nightmare of the current crisis. Neoclassical economics as a theory long predated the Neoliberal Thought Collective; it is only lately that it has shown signs of morbidity. As we shall argue, it has fallen to neoclassical economists to swarm over and incapacitate most serious attempts to isolate and diagnose why the crisis came as a shock and an enigma to those tasked with its understanding. The economists have haunted our dreams with their half-coherent struggles to describe and analyze the creeping dread. Yet it has been the neoliberals who have served as the advance shock troops for the zombie hordes, reconnaissance parties deploying their shock doctrines and shock therapies that rally the walking dead in their wake. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 71 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

This is what Krugman has called “flaws-and-frictions” economics, and it propounds the bromide that “we already had models that told us the crisis was coming.” It follows that outsiders should ask: So why weren’t these models well represented in macro or micro textbooks and graduate pedagogy? Stiglitz is fully aware there exists a tradition of oxymoronic “New Keynesianism” that reprised a boring old pre-Keynesian story of sticky wages and prices in a neoclassical equilibrium, but he suggests there exists something else on offer more compelling. In Stiglitz’s case, there is a special caveat: the models he has in mind are found mostly in his own previous publications. While there could be no academic prohibition against tooting your own horn, there is something less than compelling about claiming a grand generality for some idiosyncratic models where the novelty quotient is distinctly low. While Stiglitz has certainly earned his Nobel, he has not effectively staunched the intellectual trend of treating markets as prodigious information processors; nor has he provided a knock-down refutation of the EMH. This has led to the distressing spectacle of Stiglitz, the great hope of the “legitimate left,” openly defending the neoclassical approach to the crisis, while not really changing it all that much. … Stiglitz has admitted that his mission all along was to undermine free-market fundamentalism from within: … [I]t seemed to me the most effective way of attacking the paradigm was to keep within the standard framework as much as possible …While there is a single way in which information is perfect, there are an infinite number of ways that information can be imperfect. One of the keys to success was formulating simple models in which the set of relevant information could be fully specified … the use of highly simplified models to help clarify thinking about quite complicated matters. … The way he sought to do this is to produce little stripped-down models that maximize standard utility or production functions, with a glitch or two inserted up front in the setup. He has been especially partial to portraying “information” as a concrete thing to be purchased, and “risk” as standard density function with known parameters. There is no canonical Stiglitz “general model,” but rather a number of specialized dedicated exercises, one for each flaw and/or friction explored. Macroeconomics then simply becomes microeconomics with the subscripts dropped. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 764 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Neoclassical economics as a whole is a zombie tradition resistant to refutation — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 66; Neoclassical economics and the Neoliberal Thought Collective are distinct movements — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 71; Neoclassical economics treats its own past claims as disposable bygones — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 453 (+4 more)

Related

• Neoclassical economics as a whole is a zombie tradition resistant to refutation (similarity 0.92)
• Stiglitz’s internal critique left neoclassical economics essentially unchanged (similarity 0.87)
• Neoclassical economics and the Neoliberal Thought Collective are distinct movements (similarity 0.86)
• Neoliberalism persists as undead zombie beyond its discrediting (similarity 0.84)
• Formal neoclassical theorems undermine the very principles the theory claims to establish (similarity 0.84)
• The 2008 crisis killed none of the dominant economic doctrines. (similarity 0.83)
• Information-side patches to neoclassical economics remain epicycles never incorporated into the core model (similarity 0.82)
• Economists, not politicians, are the ambient zombies in crisis culture (similarity 0.82)
• Neoclassical economics’ canonical theorems undercut each other’s core claims. (similarity 0.82)
• Neoclassical models cannot diagnose man-made crises, only exogenous shocks. (similarity 0.81)
• Neoclassical economics treats its own past claims as disposable bygones (similarity 0.80)
• Neoclassical economics had no framework for deflationary crises (similarity 0.80)
• Neoliberals themselves deny their doctrine ever existed while others prematurely proclaimed its death (similarity 0.79)
• Neoliberalism was always a political doctrine ungrounded in economic theory. (similarity 0.79)
• Neoliberalism may not cohere as a unified doctrine in actual practice. (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Neoclassical economics as a whole is a zombie tradition resistant to refutation #corroborates (0.90) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 66
• Neoclassical economics and the Neoliberal Thought Collective are distinct movements #corroborates (0.85) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 71
• Neoclassical economics treats its own past claims as disposable bygones #qualifies (0.75) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 453
• Stiglitz’s internal critique left neoclassical economics essentially unchanged #corroborates (0.75) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 764
• Neoliberalism triumphed through fringe think tanks, not academic economics #qualifies (0.70) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 377
• Neoclassical economics had no framework for deflationary crises #corroborates (0.70) — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 158