But they are all a law experts, not all kinds of experts. Economists are famously partisan. Sociologists too.
Law is fairly obviously a different field, because they are focusing on the details of legislation and that is a moderating effect. Let me give you an example. If you spend an inordinate amount of time geeking into the technical details of (association) football, you probably cannot really be a harcore hooligan / ultra type supporter. What the ultras worship is an ideal of the game, an ideal of a team. While you care about the minute details.
Economists, sociologists, unlike law experts, do not focus on the minutiae of legislation but rather they subscribe to sweeping schools of thought that promise to offer answers to a wide variety of deep social problems. They have a bit too much of a zoomed-out view. They are more saviours than tweakers.
I think there’s a valid distinction you are making here, but only up to a point. Even among economists there are broad swaths of agreement, especially where microeconomics is concerned. For example, pretty much all economists agree that barring a small set of circumstances if the number of copies of an available good go down and demand remains the same, then the selling price of the good will go up.
If anything, this situation seems similar, in that judges agree on the basics of statuotory interpretation even as there are very large ideological disagreements on other issues, such as how much weight (if any) to give to legislative statements of intent that are not part of a statute, or how to interpret constitutional questions. So the situations here may be pretty similar, and an appearance otherwise may be due to one simply knowing more about econ than legal issues.
It would be very interesting to do a variant of this study where it is a constitutional rather than legislative question and see if that makes the judges more ideological. My guess is strongly that it will but that the judges will still be the least ideological weighted of any of the four groups.
Microeconomics is obviously nonpartisan, because microeconomics is almost completely apolitical. The gloves come off with macro.
I mean, if you look at the history of macro, it is pretty bombastic. For while all that exists is the “classical” school (and, less relevant, the proto-Austrian). Economics is a curiosity for the elite. Then Marx suddenly calls for the pitchforks. Suddenly, things get interesting. Austrians become famous via Menger demonstrating how Marxian exploitation theory doesn’t account for the subjective price of time. Of course, subjective vs. labor values are a skirmish in themselves. The major political frontline is already drawn and it is not even 1900 yet. WWI, revolutions and all that happen, and of course everybody blames Marxian macro for the Bolsheviks, right or wrong, then the Great Depression suddenly makes the Classical school distrusted. During the GD macroeconomics is redefined from a detached intellectual curiosity to a popular Save People From Unemployment Right Bleedin’ Now kind of thing. Keynes steps up to it, proposing something like a Marx Light, basically proposing to save capitalism from itself based on a low aggregate demand theory that can really only happen if workers are paid far too little and is thus basically Marxian exploitation theory in different words. In the meantime, Austrians gather steam largely on Hayek’s works and Mises’s popularity in America (Duck Tales’ Ludwig Von Drake is named after him, he was seen as the textbook eccentric professor) and Hazlitt delivers a tremendous fisking to Keynes in The Failure Of The New Economics, claiming that Keynes does not even understand the meaning of the term “function”. Meanwhile, a more polite but not much less radical Neoclassical counter-attack is brewing, and in the seventies even Sweden capitulates to neo-capitalist theiry by dropping a Nobel on Hayek. Keynesians awaken from their curve-fitting 1950′s slumber and actually pay attention to Neoclassical ideas, arriving at the Post-Keynesian Synthesis, but still don’t expect Krugman to have much love lost for Chicago, or vice versa.
The history of macro is a lot like the history of England vs. France. If you don’t mind the smell of gunpowder, it is a fascinating thing. It is bombastic. But don’t expect much agreement.
Microeconomics is obviously nonpartisan, because microeconomics is almost completely apolitical. The gloves come off with macro.
In this regard, the situation here is very similar though to the situation with legal issues. There are issues of simply how to read statues which are almost completely apolitical and there are areas where the gloves come off, like for constitutional issues. I suspect that you could do the same sort of study as this one but with microecon questions and get a similar result where the economists had less ideological bias for those questions. So the situations seem more similar.
“Microeconomics is obviously nonpartisan, because microeconomics is almost completely apolitical. The gloves come off with macro.”
Not really
Price fixing… pigovian taxation.… sales taxes > income taxes.… zoning laws… free trade… licensing regulations… immigration.… lots of political issues where economists agree on a great deal because of microecon
Krugman and Delong are much more combative than the typical economist. You’ll get a very skewed picture if you only read Krugman and the people Krugman links to. He’s in the public eye so that tends to have, I think, a very negative impact on his popular writing.
But they are all a law experts, not all kinds of experts. Economists are famously partisan. Sociologists too.
Law is fairly obviously a different field, because they are focusing on the details of legislation and that is a moderating effect. Let me give you an example. If you spend an inordinate amount of time geeking into the technical details of (association) football, you probably cannot really be a harcore hooligan / ultra type supporter. What the ultras worship is an ideal of the game, an ideal of a team. While you care about the minute details.
Economists, sociologists, unlike law experts, do not focus on the minutiae of legislation but rather they subscribe to sweeping schools of thought that promise to offer answers to a wide variety of deep social problems. They have a bit too much of a zoomed-out view. They are more saviours than tweakers.
I’m not sure to what extend that public perception if fully accurate. Partisanship makes for easy news.
I think there’s a valid distinction you are making here, but only up to a point. Even among economists there are broad swaths of agreement, especially where microeconomics is concerned. For example, pretty much all economists agree that barring a small set of circumstances if the number of copies of an available good go down and demand remains the same, then the selling price of the good will go up.
If anything, this situation seems similar, in that judges agree on the basics of statuotory interpretation even as there are very large ideological disagreements on other issues, such as how much weight (if any) to give to legislative statements of intent that are not part of a statute, or how to interpret constitutional questions. So the situations here may be pretty similar, and an appearance otherwise may be due to one simply knowing more about econ than legal issues.
It would be very interesting to do a variant of this study where it is a constitutional rather than legislative question and see if that makes the judges more ideological. My guess is strongly that it will but that the judges will still be the least ideological weighted of any of the four groups.
Microeconomics is obviously nonpartisan, because microeconomics is almost completely apolitical. The gloves come off with macro.
I mean, if you look at the history of macro, it is pretty bombastic. For while all that exists is the “classical” school (and, less relevant, the proto-Austrian). Economics is a curiosity for the elite. Then Marx suddenly calls for the pitchforks. Suddenly, things get interesting. Austrians become famous via Menger demonstrating how Marxian exploitation theory doesn’t account for the subjective price of time. Of course, subjective vs. labor values are a skirmish in themselves. The major political frontline is already drawn and it is not even 1900 yet. WWI, revolutions and all that happen, and of course everybody blames Marxian macro for the Bolsheviks, right or wrong, then the Great Depression suddenly makes the Classical school distrusted. During the GD macroeconomics is redefined from a detached intellectual curiosity to a popular Save People From Unemployment Right Bleedin’ Now kind of thing. Keynes steps up to it, proposing something like a Marx Light, basically proposing to save capitalism from itself based on a low aggregate demand theory that can really only happen if workers are paid far too little and is thus basically Marxian exploitation theory in different words. In the meantime, Austrians gather steam largely on Hayek’s works and Mises’s popularity in America (Duck Tales’ Ludwig Von Drake is named after him, he was seen as the textbook eccentric professor) and Hazlitt delivers a tremendous fisking to Keynes in The Failure Of The New Economics, claiming that Keynes does not even understand the meaning of the term “function”. Meanwhile, a more polite but not much less radical Neoclassical counter-attack is brewing, and in the seventies even Sweden capitulates to neo-capitalist theiry by dropping a Nobel on Hayek. Keynesians awaken from their curve-fitting 1950′s slumber and actually pay attention to Neoclassical ideas, arriving at the Post-Keynesian Synthesis, but still don’t expect Krugman to have much love lost for Chicago, or vice versa.
The history of macro is a lot like the history of England vs. France. If you don’t mind the smell of gunpowder, it is a fascinating thing. It is bombastic. But don’t expect much agreement.
In this regard, the situation here is very similar though to the situation with legal issues. There are issues of simply how to read statues which are almost completely apolitical and there are areas where the gloves come off, like for constitutional issues. I suspect that you could do the same sort of study as this one but with microecon questions and get a similar result where the economists had less ideological bias for those questions. So the situations seem more similar.
“Microeconomics is obviously nonpartisan, because microeconomics is almost completely apolitical. The gloves come off with macro.”
Not really
Price fixing… pigovian taxation.… sales taxes > income taxes.… zoning laws… free trade… licensing regulations… immigration.… lots of political issues where economists agree on a great deal because of microecon
Krugman and Delong are much more combative than the typical economist. You’ll get a very skewed picture if you only read Krugman and the people Krugman links to. He’s in the public eye so that tends to have, I think, a very negative impact on his popular writing.