Our protagonist gets close to the deep structure of the politics of the prize, but cannot state the obvious. Few people in 1968 would have conceded that economics, as it was then constituted, enjoyed an intellectual stature commensurate with medicine, physics, or chemistry. However, the purpose of the prize was not to 'recognize' that fact, but rather, to conjure the appearance of similar stature by fronting a prize that closely mimicked existing prizes that did enjoy that esteem in the mind of the public. The purpose of the prize was to elevate the stature of the economics profession, not to acknowledge its already hallowed status. Economics was supposed to look like a science to spectators, and the prize was just one means for the makeover.

Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, loc. 475