Check out this provocative post from this morning (or was it last night?) by the always-probing Jeff Weintraub, inspired by Paul Krugman’s recent reflections on deregulation and the economy.

I spot at least two great sociological contributions on display in this material:

(1) Weintraub’s piece highlights the importance of empirical data. In this case, it seems to clearly undercut the main neoliberal assumptions and establishment claims about the virtues of deregulation (see the chart).

(2) The reflections and critical insights from Krugman about the power and persistence of neoliberal orthodoxy–what Weintraub neatly characterizes as “a sociological analysis of hegemonic ideologies.”