ABSTRACT
In 2015, a book was released by two renowned economists, George A. Akerlof and Robert J. Shiller, under the title Phishing for Phools. The Economics of Manipulation and Deception. In its own way, it is an exceptional work, in that two liberal, self-proclaimed proponents of the free market described the pathological and socially damaging practices that take place on this market. They stated that:
free markets do not just deliver this cornucopia that people want. They also create an economic equilibrium that is highly suitable for economic enterprises that manipulate or distort our judgement, using business practices that are analogous to biological cancers that make their home in the normal equilibrium of the human body.
(Akerlof and Shiller, 2017, p. xxiii)