"ECONOMISTS OF SCALE"

Another money article over at TCS Daily:

Just how right wing are economists? A serious question, not a joke. If you look around at some of the favorite liberal or left wing ideas, or policy proposals, you see that most economists start sucking their teeth, muttering under their breath and generally, well, at best, not supporting the ideas. Even those who share the goals of a more egalitarian society, even economists known to be left wing politically, tend not to support some policies on their economic arguments. Why is this? Why is it that economists, to liberal viewers at least, all seem to be right wing?

Simply to state that the Right is right, while tempting, isn't really enough. Nor is to turn around a favorite trope of the left about the liberal bias of most of the academy: those people bright enough to be professors, well, of course they're going to be left wing, all the clever people are! Our reading of this would be that only right-wing types are so especially intellectually gifted so as to actually understand economics. Again, tempting, but not really a strong enough idea to take all that seriously. (full article)