The filmmaker Adam Curtis has written in disgust, “Despite the disasters we are [still] trapped in the economists’ world.” Yet it will become necessary for us to differentiate the world of the economists and the world of the neoliberals. This conflation is an affliction of many on the left. A major sticking point here is that neoliberals themselves generally do not believe in the comic-book version of laissez-faire sometimes promoted by the economists. They may profess it to the masses; they may even propound it in Economics 101; but it does not characterize their sophisticated internal discussions, and is belied by their political activities.

Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis …, loc. 32