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Abstract
As regular followers of the Naked Capitalism blog will appreciate, its founder Yves Smith has never been slow to condemn bankers or regulators. But in her own extended account of the crisis, Econned: How Unenlightened Self Interest Undermined Democracy and Corrupted Capitalism, Smith dug below the surface to identify the influence of economists and flawed economic theories on policy-making. Smith's skepticism of economics dates back to her college days. She had long felt the US kept repeating the same policy errors, which themselves were the product of an almost slavish devotion to mainstream economic theory and the pursuit of free markets.