Universities lost their independence and became part and parcel of the government's ruling apparatus. Academic economics stopped being an intellectual discipline focused on understanding human choices under scarcity to improve their conditions. Instead it became an arm of the government, meant to direct policymakers toward the best policies for managing economic activities. The notion that government management of the economy is necessary became the unquestioned starting point of all modern economic education, as can be gleaned from looking at any modern economics textbook, where government
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