But “society” doesn’t purchase knowledge. People do, and for specific purposes. Students decide from which college or university to purchase knowledge. Patrons of research do much the same: in an unpublished 1977 lecture whose title “To What Tune Does Science Dance?” clearly echoed Rogge, Stigler observed: “[the] huge area of antitrust & I[ndustrial] O[rganization economics] in [the] US [was] generated by both public policy and business defenses against it.” Stigler was in an excellent position to make such an observation. He played an important role in developing a distinctive Chicago approach to industrial organization, and had consulted for firms facing antitrust action. Economists develop ideas in response to consumer demand for them. In Stigler’s words, the economist was a “customer’s man.”

Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, loc. 148