Why Orthodox Economics Fails
December 1, 2008
Reviewed: Michael Perelman, Railroading Economics: The Creation of the Free Market Mythology (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2006), 238 pages, paperback, $20.00.
Paul Krugman in Development, Geography, and Economic Theory contends that the reason some economic theories are not widely engaged by economists is because they cannot be modeled mathematically. He goes on to highlight many good ideas that cannot be modeled mathematically. Michael Perelman in Railroading Economics: The Creation of the Free Market Mythology argues that there is another reason that economists do not accept these theories: some theories are rejected for ideological reasons because in economics, the orthodoxy is the free market. Perelman quotes Francis A. Walker, the first president of the American Economic Association, who said that laissez-faire "was not made the test of economic orthodoxy, merely. It was used to decide whether a man were an economist at all" (102). In other words, to be an economist, especially in the post-Soviet era, requires one to agree with the free market—that is, to believe that the market allocates resources efficiently, and that the job of the economist is to get the prices right