> Firstly the model you claim isn't taught as an actual model of the world is - for some reason - exactly the model used to shape national and international eco

> Firstly the model you claim isn't taught as an actual model of the world is - for some reason - exactly the model used to shape national and international economic policy. I claim that it is taught and in the context of a foundational model to build upon. Critiquing the 101 model in any field is a straw-man argument. Politics and economics are deeply intertwined, I agree to the claim earnestly, but it was not the point of my post, nor was it a primary point of the article. The article is directed at academic economics, so I address the attacks on academic economics. Politicians clearly have different incentives than economics (in fact, there is a robust field within economics, Public Choice Theory, which addresses the incentives of politicians and collective actors), and to judge an academic pursuit by politicians' self-serving interpretations of it is disingenuous. If the objection of the protesters is politics, then protest politics, not one of the tools they abuse. >You also ignore the fact that the few heterodox economists that exist are utterly ignored by policy makers - even when they continue to make correct predictions about future economic outcomes. See above - the article and my comment address academics, not politics. >Rigorous intellectual deconstructions have existed for decades. They have a much better predictive record than mainstream 'wisdom', but they continue to be ignored by the profession. They have indeed, and only some few have better predictive records - I'd love to hear which you are referring to (connotation = honestly curious). I'll explain this by saying that you conflate the profession of economist with the profession of politician or politician's supporter. I'll finish by noting that free-market liberalism is not a political consensus, and in fact "unfettered [free-market] [capitalism]" (and various synonyms) is commonly used as a pejorative among the political left of many leanings, and any support for the idea among the political right is lip-service at best and clearly hypocritical based on the often corporatist leanings of right-wing policy. Those on the right who do support free-market liberalism fall more toward Ron Paul and the Tea Party (neither a perfect representation of the ideal, though closer than the majority of the right) and supporters of the man or the party are clearly NOT the political mainstream, but at best a vocal minority. Those on the left supporting free-market liberalism (various anarchist groups and left-libertarians) are, if anything a smaller influence than those on the right, or at least a less discussed vocal minority in the news. The mainstream of both right and left follow remarkably similar economic policies differentiated by the rhetoric used to support them, both tending away from free-market liberalism. The conflation of politics and economics turns most public discourse into a religious war, rather than a reasoned interpretation of academic progress on many fronts (and, as you note, public ignorance of many of those academic fronts).