This association between monied (and especially banking) interests and economic thought is hardly new, though that's not to say it isn't insidious.<p>David Ricardo, the second name in classical economics after Smith, was himself a stockbroker and speculator who, according to Arnold Toynbee, bought a seat in Parliament in large part to spread his views of economics and free trade (<i>Lectures on the Industrial Revolution</i>, also discussed in Ricardo's Wikipedia biography <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ricardo" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ricardo</a>). His personal papers were collected and purchased by other bankers (notably John Ramsey McCulloch).<p>Journals such as The Economist were founded expressly to cover <i>and promote</i> specific economic viewpoints:<p><i>The Economist was founded by the British businessman and banker James Wilson in 1843, to advance the repeal of the Corn Laws, a system of import tariffs.[13] A prospectus for the "newspaper," from 5 August 1843 enumerated thirteen areas of coverage that its editors wanted the newspaper to focus on...</i><p>... thirteen areas of coverage, including "Original leading articles, in which free-trade principles will be most rigidly applied to all the important questions of the day."<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist#History" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist#History</a><p><a href="http://mitpress.typepad.com/mitpresslog/2007/01/from_corn_laws_.html" rel="nofollow">http://mitpress.typepad.com/mitpresslog/2007/01/from_corn_la...</a><p><a href="http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=1873493" rel="nofollow">http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=1873493</a><p>Numerous other academic and research institutions have similarly been strongly associated with specific business and/or banking interests.<p>The <i>Times</i> piece is only the latest coverage of a very long history of this influence.