Appeals to “free markets” treat both freedom and markets as undefined primitives, largely by collapsing them one into another. It takes substantial theoretical sophistication to keep this fact front and center in the political disputes of the modern era; both neoclassical and Marxian economics have not proven salutary in this regard. This book aims to remind us that economics turns out to be good to forget with; one prophylactic will be recourse to a different approach to economics, one that is antithetical to core neoliberal tenets at its ontological base.

Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis …, loc. 48