Once upon a time, this oversight was deemed a devastating criticism of orthodox economics. In a sense, this was the original accusation of the bait-and-switch complaint, now blown up to system level: what goes on in markets is not primarily the conveyance of goods and services to those in need, but rather the conjuring of symbols and the fabrication of felt needs. The market, it was said, is not your humble servant, but rather a Svengali or a Stromboli. This point was popularized by John Kenneth Galbraith in his New Industrial State: Most goods serve needs that are discovered to the individual not by the palpable discomfort that accompanies deprivation, but by some psychic response to their possession.

Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis …, loc. 388