The Nobel economics prize was created to win public deference for central bank independence

Evidence

Cast your eye back over our brief history, and you will discover that Åsbrink, Lindbeck, Lindahl, and Lundberg were all part of a school of thought that was convinced that the Social Democrats and the so-called ‘Swedish model’ were threatening the economic stability of Sweden, that the distinctive social welfare state that it represented in the minds of foreigners should be curtailed and cut back, and that one immediate way to achieve that end was to render the central bank more independent from its nominal owner, the Swedish state. But that would involve basing the independence of the bank upon the untrammeled rule of experts such as themselves, freed from the fetters of political subordination. In 1968, most Swedes would not have acquiesced in the credo that credentialed economists just naturally knew better than the man in the street how to run the economy without any democratic input. Therefore, it was in the interest of the Swedish Riksbank to indirectly promote the discipline of economics as a vibrant and successful science, so that the general public would eventually come to defer to its expertise, and let the central bank get along and run things unencumbered, the way it saw fit. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 476

Categorization

• XREF: Directly ties to the reader’s interest in central bank independence as a neoliberal institution — connects to Slobodian’s globalist framework and to arguments that expertise-deference undergirds depoliticized economic governance. — connects to: Central-bank independence was designed to insulate price stability from democratic pressure. — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 422; Independent central banks originated as a way to dodge democratic pressure. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 374; Central bank independence is justified by expert pseudoscience. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 375 (+13 more)
• SHARE: Perfect for a friend who studies central bank independence or monetary policy — the claim that the Nobel economics prize was partly an instrument to make the Riksbank autonomous from Swedish democracy.

Broader Connections

• The Nobel economics prize was created to manufacture science-like prestige, not to honor it #expands (0.95) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 475
• Central bank independence doctrine advanced economists’ professional self-interest as much as monetary policy #expands (0.80) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 477
• Independent conservative central bankers can credibly commit against inflation where politicians cannot #contradicts (0.80) — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 423
• Central bank independence was designed to insulate deflationary policy from democratic opposition. #qualifies (0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 374
• Central bank independence was formalized to exempt economic policy from democratic control #complicates (0.75) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 71
• Ordoliberalism institutionalized competition policy and an independent central bank against parliamentary control #qualifies (0.70) — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 364