The greed-versus-regulation framing itself is a false dichotomy

Evidence

In a review of Simon Johnson and James Kwak’s 13 Bankers, the economist Guillermo Calvo (“Yes, the Rich Will Drive Recovery”) neatly summarized the neoliberal case: “The authors detail at prolix length the oscillation between Team Greed and Team Regulation, each of which perpetually insists it has brought systemic problems to heel, and each of which is inevitably embarrassed… . The authors seem, in that instant, on the verge of realizing that the problem is the dynamic itself—that the choice between greed and regulation is a false one, that the dance of bankers and regulators is exactly what ends in a tangle on the floor, with the markets a shambles.” — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 1774

Categorization

• XREF: This is the classic regulatory-capture / dance-of-regulation argument that recurs across critical financial literature and connects to the book’s broader critique of how the neoliberal ‘thought collective’ absorbs critiques. — connects to: Market debates mirror the 1960s technology debates’ false dichotomy of adulation versus refusal. — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial…, 121; Neoliberals rejected the pure state-versus-market binary as a false dichotomy — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 9; The bad-apples framing deflects blame from systemic causes (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• The bad-apples framing deflects blame from systemic causes #expands (0.85)
• Neoliberals rejected the pure state-versus-market binary as a false dichotomy #exemplifies (0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 9