Dani Rodrik talks about neoliberalism and the ways in which the field of economics needs to escape its grasp here:
https://bostonreview.net/class-inequality/dani-rodrik-rescuing-economics-neoliberalism
Conceptualizing laws, policies, economies using physical space is a great way to approach these kinds of abstract issues, and I think Rodrik hits a lot of interesting points of discussion with this kind of language:
“Economists study a social reality that is unlike the physical universe of natural scientists. It is completely man-made, highly malleable, and operates according to different rules across time and space. Economics advances not by settling on the right model or theory to answer such questions, but by improving our understanding of the diversity of causal relationships.”
“Perhaps maps offer the best analogy. Just like economic models, maps are highly stylized representations of reality […] Economists tend to be very good at making maps, but not good enough at choosing the one most suited to the task at hand.”
