The 2011 Bank of Sweden Prize bestowed upon Thomas Sargent and Christopher Sims was exemplary of this particular culture of effrontery, this hegira from all reckoning, a big middle finger brandished at anyone who dares disparage orthodox macroeconomics. This looks like the sort of invincibility that makes for really popular comic book heroes, or embattled dictators who pronounce from the parapet that “there is no alternative.”

Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis …, loc. 438