Our belief as a society deeply influenced,  as Keynes made clear,  by dead economists and their students has been that the market is rational but people are not.  This undermines any positive expectation for individual and group thinking and leaves the corporations in control. 

The idea that  aggregates of simple agents lacking relationship to other humans, are what society is  means that the aggregate is  no more than a soup. Any idea of culture or community is pushed aside, leaving power in the hands of the organized entities, especially the corporations, having replaced the church. Aggregates of humans are very communicative, build networks and norms that contain intelligence and can act at times through voting at times by taking to the streets.  Market has undermined this capacity and pretends that  the invisible hand will make it all work out – which it won’t because the corporations  pretend to be self contained except for supply chains and  consumers isolated from each other. 

Societies fail and we should be studying how – but we are not.  We are not approaching reality with a scientist’s mind.