Part II: Fundamentalism

Fundamentalism—movement that stresses the superiority, infallibility, and authority of its beliefs in matters of faith, morals, history, and prophecy.

The “financial revolution” elevated economic theory to the status of an all-powerful religion.

The central belief was the ability to create continuous growth and improved living standards, without destructive “boom-bust” economic cycles. Policy makers and economists would achieve these outcomes by adjusting the economic flight controls. Camouflaged as a “science” in dense jargon and mathematics, the system was actually political ideology focused on the role of markets and governments in economies. The ideas of influential economists, like John Maynard Keynes and Milton Friedman, were subsumed into political agendas to shape the money economy.