… is from pages 22-23 of Deirdre McCloskey’s 1987 monograph, Econometric History:
Common-sensical though economics can be, learning to argue in this way does not come automatically with experience of life or scrutiny of The Economist. Pop economics is not the genuine article. As a way of arguing about society, genuine economics is similar to mathematics (a way of arguing about numbers) or literary criticisms (a way of arguing about novels). No adult would regard herself a master of mathematics because she can count to 100 or of literary criticism because she understood the humour in Pooh, the bear of little brain. But the parallel error is made repeatedly in matters economic, even by adults.
DBx: Yes.
Some people ‘naturally’ get the economic way of thinking more readily than do other people. But doing good economics requires always the economic way of thinking. Many PhD-sporting economists – indeed, some with Nobel Prizes to their credit – have never mastered the economic way of thinking. They are poor economists. And again, many people without formal training in economics nevertheless somehow ‘get’ the economic way of thinking (although sound formal training in the subject invariably sharpens this thinking).
Alas, however, most pundits and politicians who write and pronounce on economics haven’t a clue about the economic way of thinking. Such people, for example, refuse to look beyond the most immediate impacts of particular actions. (“See! The tariffs increased employment in the protected industries. Tariffs work!”) Such people mistake stated intentions for results. (“Sen. Snort and Pres. Prickly intend, with their industrial policy, to strengthen the economy. Being democratically elected, we trust that their motives are pure and their methods are effective!”) Such people mistake means for ends. (“Jobs should be ‘prioritized’ above consumption!”) Such people make these and several other economically ignorant errors.
