Why anyone would suggest economists are irrelevant to social policy eludes me.

Economists probably have a far higher percentage of libertarian-leaning members than any other academics (including your beloved philosophers most of whom are either conservatives or socialists), indeed more so than any other member of the public. Why do you think this is so? Economists arrive at mostly libertarian conclusions because they are economists and systematically think through aspects of policy and have made a far greater contribution to human freedom where the evidence for it being beneficial is the greatest, and where it isn’t, they mostly stick to the evidence and say so. All those concepts you mentioned are economic concepts. And as a new zealous convert to this religion of libertarianism, it upsets you when they say so. I’m almost embarassed to be associated with libertarianism now reading the ravings of some new converts all over the web.

the key point is that decisions of rationing must be made… whether it is through the market or government, resources are scarce. the so-called excesses of big business are nothing compared to government excess. reduce the role of government, and bring the economy back into the economist.

the main demand for economists is in academia and government - two places that specialise in devising freedom diminishing programs to maintain their own relevance/influence in the eyes of the public. but economists should admit the extent to which their solutions are worse than the problem. they would do better to leave us alone. just let people be free.

First post: This is an unexamined assumption,

The useful aspects of economic thought from one generation get encapsulated into the body of knowledge that is taught to the next generation.

A body of material moves from one (academic) generation to the next, not I suspect the ‘useful’ aspects, but those aspects that easily lend themselves to classroom teaching and written textbooks. For example, it has taken many years for Coase’s lighthouse example to get into textbooks (or rather Samuelson’s lighthouse example to exit.) Coase has argued against ‘blackboard economics’ for decades, yet it persists. The assumptions made about knowledge are a violation of Hayeks work from the 1930s and 1940s, yet they persist in blackboard economics and survive into appalling policy decisions. Ditto Buchanans Cost and Choice.

Why should we read Smith? (1) Because he isn’t in the textbooks. (2) Because we see where modern economics ‘gets’ it wrong. Simple example. Smith has two ‘theorems’: One the invisible hand, Two the division of labour is limited by the extent of the market. The second ‘theorem’ is a story about increasing returns. Modern ‘welfare economics’ can’t handle increasing returns and classifies this as being a ‘market failure’. So what Smith refers to as being one of the great arguments in favour of markets, modern ‘welfare’ economists classify as a failure. That is why you should try to read Smith.

Can we read all original sources? No. But as Douglass North tells us, ‘History matters’. History matters especially when the feedback corrective loops don’t work very well (such as in academic disiplines). (Please don’t say peer review corrects error - it doesn’t work very quickly, if at all, not in social science). So originals matter, especially if you’re going to be citing their ideas.

Why does it matter if modern economists have read any of Adam Smith’s publications, yet alone own copies of them? Should modern mathematicians read Euclid’s “Elements”? The useful aspects of economic thought from one generation get encapsulated into the body of knowledge that is taught to the next generation. The fact that they read it in textbook form rather than the original source does not matter. After all, if you had to read all of the original source documents in a discipline whose knowledge frontiers are expanding, you would eventually have so much to read that you would have not have time to do so. This does not mean that it is not interesting to go back and read some of the original documents. However, is not really necessary to do so in order to be a good economist.

Regards,

Damien.

I just found this thread from a recent link - though I think I skimmed it earlier when you posted it. I like your distinction and while I regard myself as quite strongly influenced by classical liberalism (along with rival camps like conservatism and social democracy), I find myself unattracted to libertarianism. Then again there may be some circular redefinition going on. I may tend to think of the more strident expressions of the same position as ‘libertarian’ and the more moderate expressions as ‘classical liberalism’. Anyway the distinction you’ve proposed makes sense to me intuitively.