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This theory would make a lot more sense if political tradewinds adhered a little more closely to economic consensus. Economists broadly want to eliminate the m

by cheald 10y ago

This theory would make a lot more sense if political tradewinds adhered a little more closely to economic consensus. Economists broadly want to eliminate the mortgage interest deduction, corporate interest deductions, and reduce the corporate income tax, want employers to stop providing health insurance as an employment benefit (http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/tax-reform http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/tax-reform, http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/healthcare http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/healthcare), and broadly disfavor rent control (http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/rent-control http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/rent-control). Yet before we go off accusing economists of being right-wing shills, they also broadly want carbon taxes over income taxes (http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/carbon-taxes-ii http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/carbon-taxes-ii) and favor open immigration policies (http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/high-skilled-immigrants http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/high-skilled-immigrants). None of these are particularly politically-fashionable positions to take, with the possible exception of the CIT issue, which plays well with one half of the electorate and is broadly viewed as liquid evil by the other half.

snrplfth 10y ago
Exactly. It's like how I keep seeing people accusing "economists" (usually as an undefined group) with being concerned with "justifying the status quo". This, despite most economists having frequent, major disagreements with common current policies in many areas. What it tells me is that they're probably not really looking at the field as a whole. It's the trouble with people making equivalences between "a particular person calling themselves an economist" and "economics". There are hundreds of thousands of people with economics degrees, it is trivially easy to find one who says what you want to hear. But then, that economist's words are often taken to reflective of economics as an entire field of study - regardless of the reasoning behind it, or how many other economists actually agree. So most economists may have totally sensible reasons for supporting Policy A, but when one dissenting economist supports Policy Not-A, the "consensus view" gets ignored. I don't know why this is. Maybe because people feel competent to judge economic reasoning in a way that they don't with other fields (and which might lead them to seek more opinions.)
- tcfunk 10y ago
  This is interesting if true, and a little strange. As an example, I have a Computer Science degree, however I can't imagine anyone taking what I have to say about Computer Science to be reflective of the greater industry. I'm just a schmuck with a degree.
  - snrplfth 10y ago
    I think maybe it has to do with what people are asked about, and with the level of uncertainty. Most questions that people would ask of a CS degree holder are probably specific technical ones, with fairly well-defined answers. But with economics, everybody wants answers to the sweeping, big-picture questions that are very hard to answer definitively (people who say, "we just don't know the answer, and here's why" tend not to be terribly popular in the media.) People are also, I feel, not well-informed about the basics of economics, so that they can take a particular jargon-y or specific statement by an economist out of context and totally misinterpret it. (Imagine: "These data are organized in a tree." "Hah, computer scientists think my laptop is powered by tiny forests!" Yet this is what happens when economists talk about "value" or "cost", or things of that nature.) Of course this phenomenon does happen in other fields too - think of how often there's an article where "science says x!", when in reality it's just one paper with a tentative conclusion. It just seems particularly common for people to misunderstand economics.
erostrate 10y ago
Economists are in favor of carbon taxes because the alternative is environmental regulation. They favor open immigration policies because it brings flexibility to the job market. Leading to less job security for low skill workers and more profits for multinational companies. Economists are not intentionally supporting multinationals interests over people's interests. They do so as a side effect of their belief in the correctness and practical relevance of microeconomics and neo-classical theories. This behaviour is in turn encouraged and rewarded by multinationals and investment banks, leading dissenting voices to be marginalized. Of course there are notable exceptions, Stiglitz, Krugman, Rodrik, and a few others. But the general point is that if you want to get an economics PhD from a red brick university you will have to support this viewpoint.
- enoch_r 10y ago
  I would be very curious to know why this has happened to economists alone--out of all the liberal arts departments. Are sociologists, historians, and political scientists immune to these influences? Or have the multinationals just refrained from attempting to influence them? What explains the lack of "multinational capture" among non-economist academics?
  - erostrate 10y ago
    Economics studies the production of wealth, which is more relevant to business? Also economics claim to have a strong predictive power? I don't know. There are also interesting differences in how economists view themselves compared to other humanities, see this (biased) paper: Fourcade et al, the Superiority of Economists http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.29.1.89 http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.29.1.89 Economics tend to be a more insular and hierarchical discipline, and views itself as non-normative.
  - edanm 10y ago
    One possibility, which I believe to be correct, is that what the parent wrote above isn't true. Economists study a field in which many people both have a strong bias, and a strong belief they know what they're talking about. Not many people vigorously disagree with historians cause not many people care that much about history. With economics, they do care. Which means that when economists have theories that fly in the face of what people believe (like pretty much all of science), people get more annoyed.

by cheald 10y ago

snrplfth 10y ago

Exactly. It's like how I keep seeing people accusing "economists" (usually as an undefined group) with being concerned with "justifying the status quo". This, despite most economists having frequent, major disagreements with common current policies in many areas. What it tells me is that they're probably not really looking at the field as a whole. It's the trouble with people making equivalences between "a particular person calling themselves an economist" and "economics". There are hundreds of thousands of people with economics degrees, it is trivially easy to find one who says what you want to hear. But then, that economist's words are often taken to reflective of economics as an entire field of study - regardless of the reasoning behind it, or how many other economists actually agree. So most economists may have totally sensible reasons for supporting Policy A, but when one dissenting economist supports Policy Not-A, the "consensus view" gets ignored. I don't know why this is. Maybe because people feel competent to judge economic reasoning in a way that they don't with other fields (and which might lead them to seek more opinions.)

tcfunk 10y ago
This is interesting if true, and a little strange. As an example, I have a Computer Science degree, however I can't imagine anyone taking what I have to say about Computer Science to be reflective of the greater industry. I'm just a schmuck with a degree.
- snrplfth 10y ago
  I think maybe it has to do with what people are asked about, and with the level of uncertainty. Most questions that people would ask of a CS degree holder are probably specific technical ones, with fairly well-defined answers. But with economics, everybody wants answers to the sweeping, big-picture questions that are very hard to answer definitively (people who say, "we just don't know the answer, and here's why" tend not to be terribly popular in the media.) People are also, I feel, not well-informed about the basics of economics, so that they can take a particular jargon-y or specific statement by an economist out of context and totally misinterpret it. (Imagine: "These data are organized in a tree." "Hah, computer scientists think my laptop is powered by tiny forests!" Yet this is what happens when economists talk about "value" or "cost", or things of that nature.) Of course this phenomenon does happen in other fields too - think of how often there's an article where "science says x!", when in reality it's just one paper with a tentative conclusion. It just seems particularly common for people to misunderstand economics.

erostrate 10y ago

Economists are in favor of carbon taxes because the alternative is environmental regulation. They favor open immigration policies because it brings flexibility to the job market. Leading to less job security for low skill workers and more profits for multinational companies. Economists are not intentionally supporting multinationals interests over people's interests. They do so as a side effect of their belief in the correctness and practical relevance of microeconomics and neo-classical theories. This behaviour is in turn encouraged and rewarded by multinationals and investment banks, leading dissenting voices to be marginalized. Of course there are notable exceptions, Stiglitz, Krugman, Rodrik, and a few others. But the general point is that if you want to get an economics PhD from a red brick university you will have to support this viewpoint.

enoch_r 10y ago
I would be very curious to know why this has happened to economists alone--out of all the liberal arts departments. Are sociologists, historians, and political scientists immune to these influences? Or have the multinationals just refrained from attempting to influence them? What explains the lack of "multinational capture" among non-economist academics?
- erostrate 10y ago
  Economics studies the production of wealth, which is more relevant to business? Also economics claim to have a strong predictive power? I don't know. There are also interesting differences in how economists view themselves compared to other humanities, see this (biased) paper: Fourcade et al, the Superiority of Economists http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.29.1.89 http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.29.1.89 Economics tend to be a more insular and hierarchical discipline, and views itself as non-normative.
- edanm 10y ago
  One possibility, which I believe to be correct, is that what the parent wrote above isn't true. Economists study a field in which many people both have a strong bias, and a strong belief they know what they're talking about. Not many people vigorously disagree with historians cause not many people care that much about history. With economics, they do care. Which means that when economists have theories that fly in the face of what people believe (like pretty much all of science), people get more annoyed.