Anatole Kaletsky’s evisceration of “old economics” in the London Times may be consistent with the general backlash during the current recession, but it’s half-baked.
To wish simultaneously for a return to an “anecdotal tradition” and for theories to be “tested against reality” is perverse. The economy is indeed a complex system, and to draw correct conclusions on the relationships in a complex system requires more than anecdote. As epidemiology is to medicine, so econometrics is to economics; a
patient’s recovery after leeching does not prove leeching effective, and folk inference in economics would be just as counterproductive, in its own way. The “analytical rigour” so disdained by Mr. Kaletsky represents the struggle to understand and draw inference from the very real complexity that to rely on anecdote risks ignoring.
The first idea, known as “rational expectations”, maintained that capitalist economies with competitive labour markets do not need stabilising by governments.
The second idea — “efficient markets” — asserted that competitive finance always allocates resources in the most efficient way, reflecting all the best available information and forecasts about the future.
theories are if-then that any single conclusion can be given an ‘if’ and be co-opted and championed by the politically powerful of the moment, but the “assertions” come always from the interpreter, not from the theorem.
Literary and cross-disciplinary approaches to economics can have great value in conveying economic ideas and in complementing other forms of research. What would be unacceptable, however, would be the abandonment of valuable tools to help us to understand the way things are. Perhaps attacking economists makes us feel better, but this is like blaming the shipbuilder, engineer or mathematician for a drunk captain’s crash.
This is garbage.
Jim Campbell 
data shows that government intervention hinders long-term economic growth. Econ 101.
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