Pure economics aspired to be something like the Platonic form of social inquiry. Just as ideas for Plato were the authentic essence of existing phenomena, so too economic ideas were more real than reality itself. Th ey were the true model, the archetype that reality played out. Its selfdescribed “purity” did not stem from a detachment from the real world; to the contrary, economics had an undeniable and practical end game. Like Plato’s philosopher, the economist had to return to the cave and rescue the unenlightened from their ignorance. Th e four professors had as their ambition to eradicate the impurities of the real world so that it would conform to the purity of their mathematical models.

Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, loc. 1116