Unfettered markets always lead to efficient outcomes. Alan Greenspan and many, many others believed this nonsense. As economist Joseph Stiglitz reminds us, that's why the Bubblemeister would opine that there's no such thing as a bubble, there's just a little froth in the economy. His intellectual heir, Ben Bernanke, learned this Great Truth at the feet of the master.
How convenient. For most of the last 3 decades, many influential economists embraced a theory that justified wholesale theft by the Finance industry because the magical powers of Adam Smith's Invisible Hand would always result in greater "efficiency" in the economy. It's as if Homo sapiens had suddenly stumbled upon a miraculous potion— this was framed as the efficient market hypothesis. Drinking this cleansing kool-aid would enable us to see clearly that Gordon Gekko was right, unfettered greed is good. Hundreds of years of economic history, and thousands of years of human history, could simply be tossed out the window. Move on, nothing to learn there.
As the condition of the Empire deteriorated over these past 30 years, it was essential that there be effective rationalizations those Running The Show could cite to justify why theft was not only condoned, but actively promoted through further calls for deregulation. There will always be clueless intellectuals willing to provide these rationalizations. Economists are the High Priests of American Culture, and Gross Domestic Product is the False Idol they worship, so most of the required intellectuals were practitioners of The Dismal Science.
Where is that Invisible Hand? It's gone missing...
The reason that the invisible hand often seemed invisible was that it wasn't there
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