Debatable Ideas #2 - Economists are discriminated specialists

Why we treat economists differently from other specialists?

• If I'm building a house and I hire an engineer to tell me the right width of a wall, I don't have opinions on it and I accept his suggestions
• If I need medical attention, I'm not expecting the doctor to be personable or politically correct

But take any of the below theories:

• The idea that Free Trade is desirable has been actively challenged but survived to today
• Comparative Advantage ensures that trade is always beneficial, even if you are better at everything
• Chamley-Judd Redistribution Impossibility Theorem states that rational workers should prefer a higher tax on wages rather than a higher tax on capital

Or any of these less controversial but counterintuitive theories:

• Braess' paradox a game theory paradox that says that adding a road to a congested road traffic network could increase overall journey time
• Giffen's Paradox that says that certain type of goods have higher demand with higher prices

And we all have opinions. Usually the less we know about a subject the more we become politicised and politically correct.

But we don't have opinions of wall sizes or the specific drug that's required to cure an illness.

With all specialised subjects, we either task a specialist with the analysis, the interpretation and the decision or we educate ourselves and look at facts and data. We don't trust intuition and we usually don't have an opinion.

If we talk about interest rates, taxes, trade, etc., we handle things to politicians or we blindly follow partisan views (usually the same as the group we belong to, so incidentally we don't even choose these views but we are "born in them") without questioning or educating ourselves, we follow opinions and we trust intuition.

This is a problem because:

• If we try to interpret reality by using a model that describes how we would like reality to be, rather than a model that describes how reality is, we draw nice, maybe well-meaning but wrong conclusions
• If, furthermore, we vote based on the same model we get politicians in power that at best are incompetent well-meaning people (as they don't realise that the idea is wrong) or more worryingly competent self-interested and rent-seeking people

And then I'm not very surprised that "economics does not work"...

What you think?

For other Debatable Ideas, pls see:
Debatable Ideas #1 - Do you prefer an ivy league degree or an ivy league education - Signalling vs Human Capital value of Education