I think you give too much credit to economists as propagandists. Pretty much any other kind of social scientist receives way more space in the media than econom

I think you give too much credit to economists as propagandists. Pretty much any other kind of social scientist receives way more space in the media than economists do. And an educated layman seems way more likely to be acquainted with the Milgram experiments or with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis than he is to be acquainted with comparative advantage. Specially today. Back in the 1970s you could have seen Milton Friedman and John Kenneth Galbraith exchange passive aggressions through their own TV series (respectively "Free to Choose" and "Age of Uncertainty"). I don't know of a contemporary equivalent. Unless you literally mean that they're making justifications for the ruling class and have them as their captive audience. Which, I'm ... rather tempted to agree. Unfortunately, people have a self-serving bias, and like paying people to say what they want to hear.