Science or Politics?

Paul Krugman, with whom I do not always agree, asks two very pertinent questions:

“Were the freshwater guys always just pretending to do something like science, when it was always politics? Is there simply too much money and too much vested interest behind their point of view?”

Let’s set aside our differences for a moment and unite behind those questions.

Yes. It was always politics.

Yes. There is simply too much money and too much vested interest behind their point of view.

Orthodox economics is a sham as a science. It is an ideology masquerading as science. How else can we describe a body of thought that appears totally inflexible and immune to contradictory evidence? It does not adjust. It’s believers do not learn. They preach. They proselytize. Their theory lies exposed for all to see as a mere prop for a particular point of view. A point of view that justifies inequality of outcomes and mean spirited indifference to the plight of vast swathes of our fellow citizens in the name of pseudo-efficiencies in the allocation of our collective resources. These supposed efficiencies are neither observable nor measurable in the real world, but only within the enclosed, cramped spaces of models specially created to produce a very limited and desired outcome. Desired, that is, by those who value extreme individualism over community, excessive competition over cooperation, and an almost pathological belief in rational behavior over human cognitive frailty.

There is nothing in orthodox economics that resembles the world in which we live. Yet it is deployed relentlessly, and heartlessly, by policy makers as if it were some scientific truth. Worse: it is deployed as a template for social change. It is thus a toxic and supremely unethical attempt to bend society to the advantage of a particular vested interest.

Yes. It was always politics.

Of course it was.