A long time ago, in what now feels like a past life, I spent several years working in London as a management consultant, for consultancies that specialized in advising consumer-facing companies of various kinds — retailers, media firms, packaged-goods manufacturers, and the like. For someone who would go on to become a scholar interested in understanding the nuts and bolts of capitalism, it was an invaluable experience. I’m not a physical scientist, but, if I were, it would be like I had done my laboratory trials before even applying to do my doctorate. The research is done. Now, what are my research questions, and who is going to fund me?

It was also in numerous respects a salutary experience. In immersing myself in my clients’ operations I was frequently taken aback by how unscientific the whole enterprise of business appeared to be — and how peculiar. Having grown up believing that our “captains of industry” knew what they were doing and that they did it in ways that were eminently rational, it repeatedly came as a shock to find things otherwise, although with time that shock diminished. Managers often seemed to be fumbling around in the dark, guessing, more or less, at the likely outcomes of strategic choices. Entire industries functioned in ways that would have been essentially unimaginable had one sat down to design them from scratch.

Television advertising was — and is — one example of this seeming wrongheadedness. Imagine you are a major branded manufacturer, let’s say, Volvo, sitting down to negotiate an advertising deal with a major broadcaster, let’s call them Channel 4 (one of the UK’s leading advertiser-funded broadcasters).