To assert that the early Chicago economists did not perceive themselves to be part of a coherent school, did not espouse a consistent ideological program, and did not even identify one another as peers engaged in a common endeavor is not to argue that they failed to have a decisive impact on their students and the economics profession during its most transformative years. Students' recollections of their educations at Chicago often take the form of a conversion narrative, even if the missionaries were reluctant and perhaps even unwitting in their roles. Time and again students remember entering Chicago as passionate socialists and departing as ardent advocates of the capitalist order. James Buchanan's experience is exemplary. After arriving at Chicago with a strong socialist orientation, he enrolled in Frank Knight's course on price theory. Knight was "not an ideologue, and he made no attempt to convert anybody," Buchanan recalls, but nevertheless, "within six weeks after enrollment in Frank Knight's course in price theory, I had been converted into a zealous advocate of the market order."

Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, loc. 117