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The second hurdle is the political role of economic theory. The last genuine scientific revolution in economics occurred in the 1870s, when the Neoclassical took over from the Classical school of thought – the approach developed by Adam Smith (Smith 1776), extended by David Ricardo (Ricardo 1817) and commandeered by Marx (Marx 1867). Neoclassical economists imagine that their theories originated with Smith (Samuelson and Nordhaus 2010a, p. 5), but in fact Smith, Ricardo and Marx used an ‘objective’ theory of value that is completely at odds with Neoclassical theory. Ricardo explicitly rejected the utility-oriented, scarcity-based proto-Neoclassical economics of his contemporary Jean-Baptiste Say, declaring emphatically that:

There are some commodities, the value of which is determined by their scarcity alone … These commodities, however, form a very small part of the mass of commodities daily exchanged in the market … says Adam Smith, ‘… It is natural that what is usually the produce of two days’, or two hours’ labour, should be worth double of what is usually the produce of one day’s, or one hour’s labour.’ …

That this is really the foundation of the exchangeable value of all things, excepting those which cannot be increased by human industry, is a doctrine of the utmost importance in political economy; for from no source do so many errors, and so much difference of opinion in that science proceed, as from the vague ideas which are attached to the word value. (Ricardo 1817, Chapter 1, emphasis added)

The Classical school of thought had logical problems of its own (Keen 1993a, 1993b; Steedman 1977), but a key factor in its demise, and the rise of the Neoclassical school, was that Marx turned the Classical approach into a critique of capitalism itself (De Vroey 1975). Since then, the fact that Neoclassical economics supports wealthy interests, via its merit-based theory of income distribution, has played a major role in cementing the dominant position of Neoclassical economics. Well-funded ‘thinktanks’ promote its analysis of capitalism, so that its analysis of the economy dominates popular and political discourse on economics. This ideological role of Neoclassical economics means that it is defended vigorously, even when reality proves it to be wildly wrong about the nature of capitalism itself.