I have a doctor I really like, partly because he is interested in many things and likes to talk about them and partly because most of that talk is insightful, thought-provoking and occasionally brilliant.
In one of our less high-flung conversations, he was recently complaining to me that state regulations required him to have a gynecological table equipped with a speculum warmer (cost: $10,000) in each of his examining rooms, although there is no chance he’ll ever use one. He focused at first on the space they take up, but then segued to the fact that with ten examining rooms, his practice had had to shell out $100,000 for these things.
But then he quickly corrected himself: “Of course I realize there’s really no harm done because somebody is getting that money, but still…..”.
One sees this constantly. Smart, thoughtful, well-informed and insightful people can turn into blithering idiots when they talk about economics. But that’s part of a much more general phenomenon: Smart, thoughtful, well-informed and insightful people can turn into blithering idiots when they talk about pretty much anything outside their narrow specialties. (I wouldn’t be surprised if my doctor has regaled more than one dinner table with some of my thoughts about medicine.) That’s part of why we need specialization. If we had no specialties, we’d all be blithering idiots about everything.
In this case I went the route of gentle correction: “Well, yes, but instead of getting paid to build gynecological tables that nobody will ever use, those same people could have been paid to build something useful…”. His facial expression suggested that I’d given him a new and valuable insight (or maybe that he was trying to make me think that I had).
We should call out idiocy when we see it. We should also remember that we are all idiots in our own way.
Amen. I’ll take a step further. Journalists generally acknowledge their ignorance about specialties, such as medicine, electrical engineering, art, etc., to the extent that they defer to specialists when writing and reporting. But when it comes to economics it seems all bets are off. It seems to me that very few acknowledge that economics is a science. How often must we endure the phrase “price gouging” for example. I never encountered it in my price theory classes. It is not a term that is useful to economic inquiry.
I’ve long been amazed that it is so common to have folks opine on economics with no background knowledge when these same people would never announce opinions in, say, oncology or particle physics. Perhaps because economics is so closely tied to politics and it seems nearly universal that nearly everyone has an opinion on nearly every political topic?
In a previous comment, Jb claims economics is a science. I find this quite a stretch, given the lack of predictive ability of economic theories, though I find these theories to be illuminating and insightful.
I think it is fairly natural for people without training to spout a bit of economics not as much as its connections to politics (although that is an immediate cause) but because of its connections to life. When it comes to physics you have the OCCASIONAL person who is going to insist that the earth is flat, but very few are going to be motivated to argue against gravity…there just isn’t that much that can be done!
But when it comes to economics, almost everybody spends some time buying things, and almost as many sell things, even if it is only their labor. It is just going to seem a lot more plausible to nonprofessional economists that you can legislate some of this away, and hope springs eternal that some of the legislation would actually help somebody.
But I supposed King Knut maintained (satirically?) that he could control the tide, and the European Union maintains that there is a right to be forgotten, so I guess it is not just economics that so stubbornly resists law.
Bastiat rides again!