Review of Colander & Freedman’s Where Economics Went Wrong : Chicago’s Abandonment of Classical Liberalism

Colander and Freedman draw a much larger circle around recent criticisms of the economics discipline, arguing that the source of “where economics went wrong” lies in the discipline's sublimation of the art of economic policy to its scientific counterpart. Whereas classical liberal blended the science of political economy with the art of policy-making, the methodological assumptions of 20th century economics, especially at Chicago, enshrined the “economist as policy scientist” as the new archetype of a modern policy advisor.The essay reviews their argument and examines four aspects of the history they tell that deserve greater attention than they provide