“Literature on neoliberalism tends to focus either on the intellectual genealogy of neoliberal thought or on the political history of neoliberal policies. [The Big Myth] adds a third dimension to the story . . . an immense scholarly feat.” —The New Yorker
“The important and frequently infuriating history of how it is that Americans came to equate the broad concept of freedom with an almost religious belief in the free market.” —The Washington Post
“Impressive.” —The New York Times
“Offers a valuable perspective on our current disputes about both the democratic and the capitalist sides of democratic capitalism.” —The Financial Times
“[A] scorching indictment of free market fundamentalism … and how we can change, before it's too late.” —Esquire, Best Books of Winter 2023
“Richly researched … [Oreskes and Conway] succeed in chronicling a concerted effort by American business to shift public opinion in favor of free markets.” —The Economist
“Outstanding … A pair of historians explain how market fundamentalism leads to science denial … For scientists who are dumbfounded by anti-science attitudes, understanding this history is vital. Only by understanding the forces that cause science denial can anything be done about it. Like Merchants of Doubt before it, The Big Myth offers crucial insight into this phenomenon.” —Science
“A sweeping tale of what must be one of the most successful propaganda campaigns ever, one that transformed the intuitive common sense of both American elites and regular people . . . The book is an incredible work of scholarship, and every page has at least one sparkling, fascinating fact.” —The Intercept
“Conservative economic thought has had a major influence on American life and culture. Readers clamoring for an understanding of its intellectual origins would benefit from picking up The Big Myth.” —FTC Watch
“Hard-hitting, persuasive.” —Nature
“A vital resource for those trying to navigate a world where the government is demonized by many and corporations receive the rights of citizens from our courts.” —Social Impact Review
“Readers will be intellectually enlivened ... The way the book challenges each component of market mythology is hugely impressive … In a world facing existential threats like climate change, markets alone do not suffice, [Oreskes and Conway] argue. Governments must act.” —BookPage
“A persuasive examination of how corporate advocates, libertarian academics, and right-wing culture warriors have collaborated to try to convince the American people that economic and political freedom are indivisible, and that regulation leads inexorably to tyranny ... Polemical yet scrupulously researched, this wake-up call rings loud and clear.” —Publishers Weekly
“A thoughtful denunciation of the economic dogma that the market knows best … A timely, well-argued contribution to the literature of economic inequality and regulation.” —Kirkus Reviews
“At last, an antidote to the toxic fiction that now imperils our planet and our democracy. For decades, self-interested businessmen have promoted the canard that any government effort to make markets work more safely and fairly will cost us our freedom. Not true, show Oreskes and Conway as they boldly exhume the buried truth: that what's really at stake is the form of capitalism we choose. If you read only one book this year, make it The Big Myth.” —Nancy MacLean, author of Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America
“Both a carefully researched work of intellectual history, and an urgently needed political analysis explaining how Americans have become so deeply alienated from their own government. In a compelling narrative, the authors show how a small but zealous cadre of conservative businessmen, many of them selling harmful products, waged and largely won an undeclared ideological war for Americans' hearts and minds. The magical thinking they promoted has profited them handsomely, but cost the rest of the country tragically.” —Jane Mayer, author of Dark Money
“Admirers of the authors' Merchants of Doubt will find the same trenchant investigative brilliance here, deployed on an even wider canvas. They show how wealthy industrialists praising free enterprise shamelessly put vast sums of money into manipulating the free market of ideas. The target: well over a century's worth of progressive movements from child labor regulation to the New Deal to the fight for renewable energy.” —Adam Hochschild, author of AMERICAN MIDNIGHT
“A detailed, carefully researched study of how the ideology of market fundamentalism was sold to the American public. An invaluable exposé of how a certain kind of magical thinking was turned into accepted wisdom.” —Amitav Ghosh, author of THE GREAT DERANGEMENT
“In this major work, Oreskes and Conway expose how American democracy was deformed by decades of 'free market' ideology. They reveal how big business interests attacked the very guardrails that make markets safe and fair and flogged the self-serving notion that popular democracy is dangerous to 'freedom.' Worst of all, American business successfully persuaded many of us that we should trust corporations more than our own government.” —Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), co-author of THE SCHEME
“A sweeping, eye-opening account of how the myth of the free market seeped into American political culture. Looking back at the history of the organizations and individuals who attempted to erase the reality of our mixed public-private system, The Big Myth busts the myth of market fundamentalism that has weakened our ability to tackle major policy challenges.” —Julian Zelizer, CNN contributor, and author of BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE
“A wonderful book. It is St. George slaying the dragon. The Big Myth can free American minds from a dangerous enthrallment.” —James Gustave Speth, former dean, Yale School of the Environment, and author of AMERICA THE POSSIBLE
“Market fundamentalism has been profoundly damaging to human and economic welfare, in terms of ill health, environmental harms, inequality, and more. How did this belief system become so prominent in ideas and politics, particularly in the USA? This fascinating and important book tells that extraordinary story with care and rigor, setting out the cast of characters, their motivations, and the modus operandi. Please read this book. And be warned.” —Lord Nicholas Stern, former Chief Economist of the World Bank
“This urgent and compelling book should be required readings in board rooms, business schools, and beyond to challenge pervasive bad assumptions and ignorance about the role of government and the importance of governance.” —Anat Admati, George G.C. Parker Professor of Finance and Economics, Stanford University, and author of The Bankers' New Clothes
2022-11-16
A thoughtful denunciation of the economic dogma that the market knows best.
“How did so many Americans come to have so much faith in markets and so little faith in government?” So ask Oreskes and Conway, continuing the line of research they began in their seminal 2010 book, Merchants of Doubt. Where that book focused on the co-optation of scientists to dispute the realities of climate change and the linkage of tobacco to cancer, this joins that co-optation to carefully planted “free market” fundamentalism that holds that any attempt to regulate business is a form of tyranny. This dogma was fomented by economists such as Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman, who argued that market efficiency was the sine qua non of freedom, as if efficiency were the only dimension of an economy. Oreskes and Conway argue convincingly that this ideology “denies capitalism’s failures and refuses to endorse the best tool we have to address those failures, which is government.” The demand for an unregulated economy precedes the Chicago School of economics, of course: As the authors note, business leaders vehemently objected to child labor laws more than 100 years ago, using the familiar argument that such laws should be left to the states. The National Association of Manufacturers, formed to resist such regulation, pressed the argument that humans were naturally unequal and that neither the government nor business was responsible for leveling the playing field. “Even today,” write the authors, “NAM continues to fight workplace safety regulation and stands with the fossil fuel industry in its attempts to escape accountability for climate change caused by its products.” Other entities foster this denialism and economic inequality, from the Federal Reserve and its “pursuit of low inflation, rather than low unemployment, [as] the nation’s primary goal” to libertarian think tanks at universities around the country that preach the government-bad, market-good ideology.
A timely, well-argued contribution to the literature of economic inequality and regulation.
