As John Eatwell noted a long time ago, these ideas, formalized as the efficient markets hypothesis (EMH) and the rational expectations hypothesis (RATEX), are just as important politically as they are theoretically, for taken together they hold that free and integrated markets are not merely a good way to organize financial markets, they are the only way. Any other way is pathology. Indeed, you may have noticed in this account that the state, along with the business cycle, booms, slumps, unemployment, and financial regulation, is nowhere to be seen. To the extent that the state has a role, it devolves to “doing nothing” since doing something will only produce price distortions that will upset market efficiency.

Mark Blyth, Austerity, loc. 128