The Big Myth

The bestselling authors of Merchants of Doubt offer a profound, startling history of one of America's most tenacious-and destructive-false ideas: the "magic of the marketplace."

"A carefully researched work of intellectual history, and an urgently needed political analysis." --Jane Mayer

"[A] scorching indictment of free market fundamentalism ... and how we can change, before it's too late."-Esquire, Best Books of Winter 2023

The bestselling authors of Merchants of Doubt offer a profound, startling history of one of America's most tenacious--and destructive--false ideas: the myth of the "free market."

In their bestselling book Merchants of Doubt, Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway revealed the origins of climate change denial. Now, they unfold the truth about another disastrous dogma: the "magic of the marketplace."

In the early 20th century, business elites, trade associations, wealthy powerbrokers, and media allies set out to build a new American orthodoxy: down with "big government" and up with unfettered markets. With startling archival evidence, Oreskes and Conway document campaigns to rewrite textbooks, combat unions, and defend child labor. They detail the ploys that turned hardline economists Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman into household names; recount the libertarian roots of the Little House on the Prairie books; and tune into the General Electric-sponsored TV show that beamed free-market doctrine to millions and launched Ronald Reagan's political career.

By the 1970s, this propaganda was succeeding. Free market ideology would define the next half-century across Republican and Democratic administrations, giving us a housing crisis, the opioid scourge, climate destruction, and a baleful response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Only by understanding this history can we imagine a future where markets will serve, not stifle, democracy.

Auteur

Naomi Oreskes is Professor of the History of Science at Harvard University. Her opinion pieces have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and many other outlets. Her TED talk, "Why We Should Trust Scientists," was viewed more than a million times.

Résumé

"The scholarly literature on neoliberalism tends to focus either on the intellectual genealogy of neoliberal thought or on the political history of neoliberal policies. Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway's The Big Myth adds a third dimension to the story ... it's an immense scholarly feat." -Louis Menand, The New Yorker

"[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

"Impressive." -The New York Times

"Oreskes and Conway tell 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 authors acknowledge that markets do have a role in generating information and allocating resources, one that central planning has never been able to replicate. Their argument is not that capitalism is bad but rather that we should acknowledge its limits." -Bethany McLean, The Washington Post

"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

"Offers a valuable perspective on our current disputes about both the democratic and the capitalist sides of democratic capitalism ... If today's executives want to address the tensions about their companies' role in our societies, The Big Myth suggests one starting point: for business to stop pushing the idea that the only role of government is to get out of its way." -The Financial Times

"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 …