The 1933 “Mock Trial of the Economists” is occasionally noticed and then interpreted as popular discontent with economists's “crime” of “conspiracy to spread mental fog” at evidenced by the dueling letters from the Oxbridge economists (Keynes, Pigou, et al.) and the LSE economists...

Economists have occasionally noticed the appearance of economists in cartoons produced for public amusement during crises. Yet the message behind such images has been less than fully appreciated. This paper provides evidence of such inattention in the context of the eighteenth century...