So Many Critics of Economics Miss What It Gets Right

At this point, blanket critiques of the economics discipline have been standardized to the point where it’s pretty easy to predict how they’ll proceed. Economists will be castigated for their failure to foresee the Great Recession. Some unrealistic assumptions in mainstream macroeconomic models will be mentioned. Economists will be cast as priests of free-market ideology, whose shortcomings will be vigorously asserted. We will be told that economics moves in cycles of fad and fashion. Readers will be reminded that economics deals with humans instead of atoms, making scientific certainty impossible. The piece will end with a call for humility on the part of economists, a more serious consideration of unconventional ideas and reduced prestige for the economics profession.

Writers for the British newspaper the Guardian are especially adept at producing this sort of broadside. The latest one, by John Rapley, is entitled “How economics became a religion,” and it follows the script pretty closely. But by now it feels like the refrain is getting a bit stale.