The orthodox economist cannot help but try to get his audience to simultaneously trust markets and trust economists. As we have seen, he is also inextricably woven into the financial sector. Older notions of the role of the “public intellectual” referred to someone who served to both personify and clarify positions of great import in public debate; but one of the signal contemporary postmodern developments has been the genesis and nurture of intellectuals poised and primed to muddy up the public mind and consequently foil and postpone most political action, and hence to preserve the status quo ante. This has been one of the objectives of the financial sector since the crisis, and economists are in the front lines of the disinformation project.

Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis …, loc. 623