The crisis destroyed confidence that anyone can understand the economic system.

Evidence

The crisis has not only wrought the economic insult mutely suffered by so many; it has also inflicted a breakdown in confidence that we can adequately comprehend the system within which we are now entrammeled. It has been de rigueur to denounce the antics of groups like the Tea Party, Golden Dawn, the True Finns, and the Front National; but can the left really claim it has been all that more sober, thoughtful, and incisive since 2007? The problem I grope toward in this volume is: How can people dismayed at the unexpected fortification of the Neoliberal Ascendancy feel less stupid? What would a useful intellectual history of the crisis and its aftermath look like? — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 36