Selective Experts

There is a sociological axiom that the buildup of unemployed men leads to war, population decline, and eventual social restabilization. While this may be nothing more than a Good Idea, this economy has similar qualities. Years of economic buildup have created an overripe economy where peripheral occupations have filled the economy and now they may go away. For good. Who would recreate this kind of uncertainty and risk again on purpose? And will the society be willing to repeat the errors and excesses?



                                  Selective Experts

From a letter to the editor at The Washington Post:

Without opining on the merits of epidemiologists’ expert assessments regarding COVID-19, I’m compelled to ask why there is no deference to the expert assessments of us economists. Why, for example, is economists’ long-standing consensus in support of free trade – indeed, strong support for unilateral free trade – ignored? We hear no demands from the likes of politicians such as Sen. Chuck Schumer or pundits such as Dana Milbank that economists’ expert recommendations on trade policy be followed in full, no questions asked.

Likewise, it’s very difficult to find an economist who supports rent control. Yet this expert consensus against rent control is routinely ignored by the likes of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and presidential aspirant Bernie Sanders. Why? Where’s their respect for experts?

I emphatically reject the Progressive belief that society is an engineering project that can be scientifically guided by a government of the best and brightest toward some optimal condition. But I also believe that true experts can play a valuable role by informing the public and government officials of the likely consequences of different policies. And so given today’s clamor for deference to the expertise of epidemiologists, where’s the deference of pundits and politicians to the expertise of us economists on those policy matters on which we can fairly be said to have reached a consensus?