ABSTRACT
Economistic liberalism denies the very existence of contestable interpersonal ethics, which places limits around how market-oriented behaviour is understood and theorised. A pragmatic historiography in relation to the 'Crisis in the Heartland' of Anglo-American financial capitalism is focused. The study of more of Smith's intellectual influences, adding more depth to the Skinnerian endeavour, might provide for an expanded historicised account of what a sympathetic political economy can offer. The GFC is a rethinking that works to recognise and make known that there are decisions to be made in political economy and, therefore, market-oriented behaviour is always subject to ethico-political intervention and change. The regulatory account of and response to the GFC thus relies on an economistic understanding of financial market agency that serves to exclude contestable interpersonal ethics. The everyday politics of the crisis provides forms of subversion more congruent with a sympathetic sensibility.
