The economics profession’s failed self-reform serves the neoliberal project by generating noise

Evidence

Agnotological precepts suggest that the orthodox economics profession has been useful for neoliberal projects because it fills the sphere of public discourse concerning the crisis with excess noise and doubt. As long as it promulgates ineffectual “revisions” to core doctrine and keeps people distracted, looking for novelty (that will assuage their fears) where none is to be found, confusing even insiders about whether the crisis warrants changing the orientation of economics, then the NTC is getting value for money. The only thing that would give them pause is the genesis of a serious antineoliberal doctrine that began to draw the allegiance of significant numbers of economists, posing a real challenge to the neoliberal ascendancy. So far, nothing of the sort has happened. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 835

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Mirowski’s NTC (neoliberal thought collective) framework and agnotology as deliberate ignorance production. — connects to: Economists serve the financial sector by muddying public debate to block political action. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 623; Behavioral economics offers the sensation of reform without reform — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 746; The economics profession and the Neoliberal Thought Collective symbiotically keep the financial system unaltered — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 674 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• The economics prize consciously moved the profession in a neoliberal direction #expands (0.80) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 484
• Neoliberal governance reshapes scholarship to serve economic usefulness #expands (0.78) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 626
• Cognitive dissonance drives economists and neoliberals to treat crisis as reinforcing their beliefs #expands (0.72)