It is often noted that "Money is Power". In our society the relationship between money and power has, effectively, been sacralized. As anthropologist Mary Douglass noted in How Institutions Think the closer an investigator got to the most holy beliefs in any culture the more evasive and defensive their informants became. It is not that they are taught how to be evasive and defensive. They do so 'naturally'.

Preferment, honors and advancement in one's profession are awarded by those with instinctive ties to the existing order, which is based on great individual wealth. If a US economist questions the tenants of NCE or, worse, undermine them they had best forget tenure at major universities or employment by the Federal Reserve. This is a very powerful disincentive. It is very much like the effects of acknowledging being an atheist has on someone with a Doctorate in Divinity becoming a minister of a denominational congregation. It is not a jest when economists speak of to which church any given economist belongs.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."