Three splashy economics revisions diverted attention from structural crisis causes

Evidence

In fact, only three tended to get puffed up into full-blown paladins of deliverance: naming them in decreasing order of ambition, they were (1) behavioral economics; (2) repudiation of the efficient-markets hypothesis; and (3) fixing the DSGE macro model. All three were extensively discussed in the blogosphere and in generalist books, newspapers, and magazines; yet incongruously, all three were hopelessly ineffectual when it came to understanding the crisis. It is their power to mesmerize combined with their impotence that warrants their discussion in this chapter. Returning once more to our insistence on the importance of agnotology, it takes some diligence and not a little digging to come to understand why the populace was being led up the garden path; those seeking enlightenment were lured to waste their time in dalliance with ideas that did little more than divert attention from the deeper structural causes of the crisis. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 725

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the ‘thought collective’ threads in earlier chapters — the promotion of these three research lines as public distraction echoes how the neoliberal thought collective manages dissent within economics. — connects to: Finance escaping crisis consequences legitimated the economics profession dodging blame — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 583; Orthodox macroeconomics masked crisis buildup and blocked repairs afterward — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 662; Post-crisis reforms to neoclassical economics were theatrical failures that still served a distraction function. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 807 (+2 more)
• SEED: Angle: ‘the distraction economy of intellectual crisis response’ — how institutions co-opt the most dramatic-sounding fixes precisely because they change nothing structural.