[quote=@The Nexerus] Because Keynesians were elected. The fiscal and monetary practices espoused by Keynes allow for a wide range of different policies from across the political spectrum to be conducted, whereas maximizing or minimizing state involvement in the economy presents a more definitive tone and allows for a less diverse policy range. In other words, pretending to be Keynesian allows you to act more dishonestly and stick with the political whims of the day, rather than having a spine. [/quote] They aren't just the most often elected, that movement also holds a dominant role is economic academics. And it really seems like a cop-out to say the dominance of this theory is because they simply aren't purist enough. That's the cult-like scent that drove me from the Free-Market folk to begin with. [quote=@mdk] electronic commerce. eBay being the prime example, but speaking of prime, Amazon, aka [url=http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-amazon-walmart-20150724-story.html]the largest retail entity in the world[/url]. [/quote] Neither of those are economies within themselves, but rather shops that exist within economies just like any other shop. And if the internet is what you mean in a general term, it proves the thesis I presented that started this discussion; that the free-market is an [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble#Bubble_growth]inherently unstable system[/url]. [quote]Also corruption is a lot harder to conduct when the invisible hand just does its own thing. Better for them to BE the invisible hand.[/quote] That only works so long as your definition of corruption is limited to the actions governments, which is the semantic version of cheating really. Even Adam Smith, the guy who coined the phrase 'Invisible Hand', didn't ignore this detail, creating really his most quotable quote in addressing it. [i]“People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” [/i]