The Keynesian Attraction
1st October 2010
Bryan Caplan does a little analysis.
At this point, it’s tempting to dismiss Keynesianism as a dogmatic cult. But in fact, there are key issues where their self-confidence is well-deserved. The only problem: They’re too scared to admit why. So let me answer for them: The source of Keynesian confidence is not “empirics,” but introspection.
One of the things that our legal system fights continually, and not always successfully, is the concept that seems plausible (and sometimes even compelling) but for which there is no actual evidence. ‘But he couldn’t possibly have been able to do that, therefore he didn’t do it.’ Economists most times don’t even fight notions that they consider intuitively obvious but for which there aren’t any supporting facts — and for which sometimes the facts point entirely the other way.