My main sources are Philip Mirowski’s history of economics books. In More Heat Than Light, he shows how economists swiped physics models for their fundamental concepts. And he shows in depth how Homo economicus was influenced by economists’ cooperation with the US government in the Cold War.

More generally, you can’t help but notice the transition from political economy in the 18th century to the highly mathematical approach that predominates today. That is a scientistic transition, based on the economists’ (1) fear or distaste of the moral questions raised by the early economists’ reflections on how the economy should be organized, and (2) envy of the prestige of science.

Economists hide the implicit normativity of their models behind impenetrable, foreboding math. Their model of rationality is idealistic. Behavioural economists bring in research to ground the models, which is helpful. But the implication of that cognitive scientific data is that we’re not actually rational enough for a deregulated economy to reach a happy equilibrium.

Without state interference, the equilibrium we’d reach would consist of class war, depression, and the destruction of the biosphere. A human economy is not self-regulating. Therefore, the neoclassical models are obfuscatory and propagandistic, not scientific. But instead of admitting this, economists pretend they’re as rigorous as physicists, just because they use math to formalize their prejudices. This is asinine since any harebrained rant emitted from the bowels of an insane asylum can be formalized. Formality is no guarantor of truth or of scientific status.