Stigler posed a provocative question: If markets generally work, then why should this not be the case for the marketplace of ideas? And if the marketplace of ideas works, then why should the public need a Milton Friedman? Or, for that matter, a George Stigler? It was a threatening question for an economist, and Stigler knew it. He had titled one article “Do Economists Matter?” Within it, Stigler insisted that the demand of the community of scholars for science was negligible: “[T]o a scientist educated hands make more melodious applause than ignorant hands, but too often the educated hands seem to be sat upon by educated asses.”

Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, loc. 146