Duncan Black, a recovering economist writing the venerable political blog, Eschaton, identifies two of these gassy theses that fill the interstitials of textbook economics:
Economists have been obsessed for years with the unemployment/inflation tradeoff. Also the inequality/growth tradeoff. The former was basically as sophisticated as saying "um, I think if unemployment gets below....umm... 6%? maybe that would bad." The latter was as sophisticated as posing the question and then never answering it but still believing it. That maybe higher inequality could be *bad* for growth, just thinking out loud here, was never really seriously considered. Both of these things have been excuses for really horrible policies which have caused so much suffering.These doctrines, it should be noted, are not pushed solely by the right-wing reactionary economists of "fresh-water" infamy. Or even especially by them in recent years. No, these are doctrines regularly validated by the left-neoliberals, the centrists with liberal consciences and mush where their brains should be.
What is wrong with economics is that the mainstream of the profession will not tolerate questioning of this hand-waving. Nor will the self-appointed "left" of the profession engage in critical thinking about theory or the institutional nature of the political economy. Sure, they will rail against the stubbornness of the profession's right, while celebrating their own informal reasonableness. That refusal to think critically accounts for the degenerate state of mainstream economics.
