"(And no, not everything in economics -- let alone economic policy proposals -- has an overwhelming consensus behind it, but there are definitely some things, l

"(And no, not everything in economics -- let alone economic policy proposals -- has an overwhelming consensus behind it, but there are definitely some things, like free trade...)" I've been reading most of the comments in this thread with a kind of silent horror, but I think yours clarifies the issue. The fact that there is a large gap between the imagined systems in place and the actual systems in place. So called "Free Trade" is largely a farce as it is purported to be, and the reality is something much different. That you would claim there is "overwhelming consensus" on "free trade" just strengthens my point. Here's what Chomsky has to say about "Free Trade". "Nobody in the corporate world or government takes free trade seriously. The parts of the economy that are able to compete internationally are primarily the state-subsidized ones: capital-intensive agriculture, high-tech industry, etc. The government has the public pay for research and development and provides a state-guaranteed market for waste production. If something is marketable, the private sector takes it over. That system of public subsidy and private profit is what is called free enterprise. Source: What Uncle Sam Really Wants, by Noam Chomsky, p. 13 , Jan 13, 1991 " The same holds for the rest of the discussion here. People want to talk about Capitalism, or Marxism, or any number of other ideological economic ideas as if they exist in their ideological form, while they obviously do not. Not only that, but that they actively exploit the misunderstanding of their form as a sort of PR move. I don't think half of the people speaking in this thread have any sort of solid understanding of such things. Too much time spent understanding the textbook academic view and not enough time spent understanding the pragmatic, complex, and nuanced view of reality.