The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market

“[A] scorching indictment of free market fundamentalism . . . and how we can change, before it's too late.”-Esquire

The bestselling authors of Merchants of Doubt offer a profound, startling history of one of America's most tenacious-and destructive-false ideas: the myth of the "free market."

In their landmark book Merchants of Doubt, Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway revealed the origins of climate change denial. Now, they unfold the truth about another disastrous dogma: the “magic of the marketplace.”

In the early 20th century, business elites, trade associations, wealthy powerbrokers, and media allies set out to build a new American orthodoxy: down with “big government” and up with unfettered markets. With trenchant archival evidence, Oreskes and Conway document campaigns to rewrite textbooks, combat unions, and defend child labor. They detail the ploys that turned hardline economists Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman into household names; recount the libertarian roots of the Little House on the Prairie books; and tune into the General Electric-sponsored TV show that beamed free-market doctrine to millions and launched Ronald Reagan's political career.

By the 1970s, this propaganda was succeeding. Free market ideology would define the next half-century across Republican and Democratic administrations, giving us a housing crisis, the opioid scourge, climate destruction, and a baleful response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Only by understanding this history can we imagine a future where markets will serve, not stifle, democracy.

Naomi Oreskes is Professor of the History of Science at Harvard University. Her opinion pieces have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and many other outlets. Her TED talk, “Why We Should Trust Scientists,” was viewed more than a million times. Erik M. Conway is a historian of science and technology and works for the California Institute of Technology. He is the author of seven books and dozens of articles and essays.

ISBN: 9781639734641
Format: Paperback
Pages: 592
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Published: March 04, 2025

“The scholarly literature on neoliberalism tends to focus either on the intellectual genealogy of neoliberal thought or on the political history of neoliberal policies. Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway's The Big Myth adds a third dimension to the story … it's an immense scholarly feat.” —Louis Menand, The New Yorker

“[A] scorching indictment of free market fundamentalism … and how we can change, before it's too late.” —Esquire, Best Books of Winter 2023

“Richly researched … [Oreskes and Conway] succeed in chronicling a concerted effort by American business to shift public opinion in favor of free markets.” —The Economist

“Impressive.” —The New York Times

“Oreskes and Conway tell the important and frequently infuriating history of how it is that Americans came to equate the broad concept of freedom with an almost religious belief in the free market … The authors acknowledge that markets do have a role in generating information and allocating resources, one that central planning has never been able to replicate. Their argument is not that capitalism is bad but rather that we should acknowledge its limits.” —Bethany McLean, The Washington Post