
While this piece hardly goes far enough in terms of the sociology of economics, particularly the rise in the late 19th century of Marginalism (arguably as a counterweight to Marxism, partially explaining its easy acceptance among elites), there is no question that this very interesting critique of modern economics by Alan Jay Levinovitz goes a long way toward explaining the problem we face today in the profession; namely, as the article subtitle states, arguing that by “fetishizing mathematical models,” economists have “turned economics into a highly paid pseudoscience.” This despite work being done by some mainstream economists that might be interesting (and of some value) in some respects and innovative, to be fair. Yet, classroom economics remains the bastion of mostly the junk stuff, despite some trivial truths in the mix, which gets more formally worked out at higher levels of learning and dressed up with lots of math. Of course, this ‘mathiness’ gives the mainstream neoclassical models an appearance of scientific credibility. Yet, the math has been shown in earlier debates to hide analytical inconsistencies and empirical contradictions.