Economics: The User's Guide by Ha-Joon Chang
Chang seems to be conflating two visions of economics: one vision of economics that says how things are, and one vision that says how things should be. There&#x27;s a lot of overlap, of course, but one is economic theory and one is political theory. In the former, there are well studied areas of economics where we have consensus for cause and effect[0][1][2][3]. To just point to areas of disagreement and say the whole field is bad reminds of those who point to disagreement on abiogenesis and say evolution is wrong. Not to say that agreement indicates correctness, but disagreement doesn&#x27;t indicate that everyone doing research is wrong.<p>The article&#x27;s other problem with economics seems to be that it assumes people are unfeeling, which is a fair criticism but not one that is particularly new. There is a field called Behavioral Economics which tries to address this and is on the radar of pretty much every economist[4].<p>The problem I think is more that economics never reaches people directly but is filtered through politics. I was reading on Bradford DeLong&#x27;s blog the story of Mankiw, who is a respected economist but worked for the Bush administration, where he felt he had to be silent about incorrect economic theory but he could influence them in small ways to be better on economics, effectively trading truth and reputation for a small amount of power[5].<p>[0]: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.igmchicago.org&#x2F;surveys&#x2F;steel-and-aluminum-tariffs" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.igmchicago.org&#x2F;surveys&#x2F;steel-and-aluminum-tariffs</a><p>[1]: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.igmchicago.org&#x2F;surveys&#x2F;supplemental-nutritional-assistance-program" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.igmchicago.org&#x2F;surveys&#x2F;supplemental-nutritional-a...</a><p>[2]: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.igmchicago.org&#x2F;surveys&#x2F;missing-productivity-growth" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.igmchicago.org&#x2F;surveys&#x2F;missing-productivity-growt...</a><p>[3]: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.igmchicago.org&#x2F;surveys&#x2F;immigration" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.igmchicago.org&#x2F;surveys&#x2F;immigration</a><p>[4]: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.igmchicago.org&#x2F;surveys&#x2F;behavioral-economics-2" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.igmchicago.org&#x2F;surveys&#x2F;behavioral-economics-2</a><p>[5]: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bradford-delong.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;07&#x2F;hoisted-from-the-2007-archives-the-incredulity-of-jared-bernstein-and-myself.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bradford-delong.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;07&#x2F;hoisted-from-the-2007...</a>