Masaru Kaneko calls himself an "al-Qaeda" among economic academics, noting that his position has won him no sympathy from the mainstream.

The Keio University professor is harshly critical of mainstream economists, labeling them "market fundamentalists" who believe the market mechanism is omnipotent but cannot explain what is really going on.

A few years ago, Kaneko had already dismissed the idea of an economic recovery led by information technology while many economists were still praising the so-called IT revolution.