There was this young economist, I think he was at UCLA, who wrote to me when I published this paper called “Whom or What Does the Representative Agent Represent?” (Kirman, 1992). He said: Dear professor, I really agree with what you said. I think it is intellectually absolutely right. Unfortunately, I am a young macroeconomist who is an assistant professor. I build models based on a representative agent. I know how to do that, and I know how to publish that. And I need to get tenure. Once I have got tenure, maybe I will then be able to turn around and start to think about the sorts of models that do not use the representative agent, but unfortunately, what I think will happen is that by then I will have got into the habit of doing it. I will publish my articles, get a decent reputation, I will get a promotion, and I will probably never think about this again. But anyway, thank you very much for the insight!

Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis …, loc. 792