talkpolitics | Do you trust the economists?

At times of financial crisis, all sorts of economic models and ideas tend to pop up. A group of German economics experts recently wrote to Angela Merkel in an open letter to stop her efforts to save the euro (as if she wasn't already being aided in that from so many sides). Meanwhile, another faction of the guild of economists defended the efforts for strengthening the EU currency. Many Anglo-Saxon authors insist that the EU should print itself out of the crisis and inflate the economy, while others among their colleagues (mostly from continental Europe) counter with the argument that the most important thing right now is to tighten the belts and eliminate the enormous debts, and lay low until the storm passes. And the fact is, neither side tells the full picture. Here are some arguments in this direction.

The economics scientists must be very happy people. That's at least how the humanitarian scientists view them. "The economists do not predict, they calculate", is a meme that can be heard often among the latter. The sentiment is that the economists don't sweat too much over searching for the truth, because they kind of "hold it firmly in their hands". (No, it's not what you're thinking).

But there are some big cracks starting to become very visible on that construct, and some'd argue it has finally tumbled down now. The guild of economists seems irreparably split ideologically, and there's something like a quiet (and often, loud) war for The Truth(tm). One side protests against policies like Merkel's who's trying to save the euro; the other defends them. And searching for the middle ground seems out of question. But one thing is for sure. The Euro crisis has removed the economics experts from their pedestal of the infallible gurus that everyone looks to, and turned them into ordinary contemporaries who do all sorts of errors more often than not. Because, let's face it, economists also work with a very flexible and fluid material, they dwell in the realm of hypotheses, so it'd be naive to believe that they hold any grip on the absolute Truth. Not even the relative truth, come to think of it.

It's not hard to see why the predictions of the economics experts should always be viewed with a huge chunk of salt. The coffer of their theoretical knowledge is full with thought constructs that actually orginate in much more ancient fields of science. Some they've borrowed from theology and philosophy. For example, the notion of the Invisible Hand of the Market that's able to bring the senseless folk back to their senses, comes from the domain of moral philosophy. In turn, the very idea of this invisible hand itself, is rooted in theology. And this fave theory for the economists, that the markets always tend to try to strive for equilibrium, originates from the teaching of the "universal harmony" (as seen in many Eastern philosophies and religions).

In the wake of the European crisis, everyone with at least two brain cells has realized that despite all that amount of common sense that's inherent to the decision-making process, the markets are always capable of exhibiting systematic irrationality. And when the economists try to analyze such crises, they simply describe a reality for which they, themselves, have contributed, after having relied so heavily on some supposedly objective laws and patterns that, in reality, don't quite work as predicted. Which is to say that the economists are part of a world for whose creation they've contributed, being the influential thinkers and voices of "reason" that they supposedly are. By the way, many among them often like to boast of being "non-partisan", "classless" and "neutral", but somehow the end result is always the same: the wealthy holding even more power and wealth, and all sorts of social gaps widening.

The smarter among the economists have realized a long time ago that they should review their core premises, i.e. they need an Enlightenment of some sort. And this can't be a bad thing - after all, the philosophers have already gone through that process. They, too, used to believe in the absolute laws of human reason (or un-reason, depending on their school of thought) for a long time, until they noticed that the philosophers themselves, with their absolutist interpretations, had imported those laws, and imposed them onto their respective societies. And it was them who assumed the task of removing the absolutist element from there. That's an Enlightenment that the philosophers only benefited from, and everyone else along with them. So, I'd say, dear economists, you're welcome to join the club! Provided that you wanted to. ;)