Chapter dzǵ: Tacit Preachments are the Worst Kind ȁȄȀeconomics in particular (which, being mislabeled, has close though inade-
quately appreciated affinities with monetarism), Robert G. King mentions
macroeconomists working “on the banks of the Charles River,” whose
product he disparages in contrast with “that of macroeconomists at the
universities where the cutting-edge research has been done over the past
decade.” Ļe latter consists of dynamic general equilibrium microeconomic
models of macroeconomic phenomena. “It is what most graduate students
are now learning and what most undergraduates will soon learn. In two
decades or less, it will be hard to find a macroeconomist whose first reac-
tions to policy problems will not be conditioned by sustained exposure to
[it]” (KingȀȈȈǿ, p.Ȁȅȁ). In a later article, King reproaches New Keyne-
sians for attempts at “marketing” a version of macroeconomics resembling
a Ford Pinto. “Ļe danger is that macroeconomists and policy-makers will
pay too much attention to the new Keynesian advertising, and assume
for too long that the old product is a sound one” (KingȀȈȈȂ, concluding
sentence).ōŏōŐőřŕŏ ŕŚŏőŚŠŕŢőş ōŚŐ œōřőş
Ļe state of academic economics is far from wholly bad; progress does
occur. Critics, though, see grounds for complaint. An article chosen at
random out of any economics journal, James Buchanan finds, is unlikely
“to have a social productivity greater than zero. Most modern economists
are simply doing what other economists are doing while living off a form
of dole that will simply not stand critical scrutiny” (ȀȈȆȈ, pp.Ȉǿ–ȈȀ). More
recently a young academic superstar has said much the same:
In America’s academic system, professors of economics get tenure and
build reputations that give them other academic perks by publishing, and
so they publish immense amounts—thousands of papers each year, in
scores of obscure journals. Most of those papers aren’t worth reading, and
many of them are pretty much impossible to read in any case, because
they are loaded with dense mathematics and denser jargon. (Krugman
ȀȈȈȃ, p.ȇ)
“Academic programs almost everywhere,” Buchanan continues, “are
controlled by rent-recipients who simply try to ape the mainstream work
of their peers in the discipline” (BuchananȀȈȇȂ/ȀȈȇȇ, p.ȀȂǿ). Mainstream
economists of theȀȈȄǿs, though wrong on much, were interested in ideas,
Buchanan says, and were not frauds or conscious parasites. Since then
economics has become