The Rachel Mystery - Everyone Knows Someone Like Rachel

 

One of the very smartest people I know is a mother of five called Rachel (name changed for confidentiality). She's an excellent Christian commentator, and a very thoughtful contemplator of a broad range of subjects. The trouble is, she's thoroughly foolish when she strays into the subject of economics. She is uninformed in economics in a strange way: she speaks as though she knows what she is talking about, and as though people who do know what they are talking about do not. This is unusual. People who genuinely don't understand economics - like Owen Jones, Polly Toynbee and Paul Mason - never sound as though they have much of a clue, which is, of course, down to the fact that they really do not have much of a clue.

But smart, brilliant, incisive Rachel - a tremendous brain on most other subjects - speaks as though she does have a clue, but ends up being like the rest of those that do not have a clue. It's the usual stuff: focusing on the benefits of something while ignoring all the costs, speaking up for certain groups of people while endorsing policies that will harm those people, trying to solve problems that aren't problems at all, misunderstand the difference between the relative and absolute, that sort of thing

After seeing a few instances of this with Rachel, I felt compelled to consider how it is that someone so excellent at most other subjects can be such a simpleton on economics. I had a few ideas, but I think these 4 are primary:

1) Economics is the queen of the sciences, but it is complex and diverse, and requires balanced lateral thinking, and an understanding of the 'seen and unseen' in a way that few can manage with real aplomb.

2) The tribal elements of politics overrides basic economic instincts to the point that people would rather be loyal to their group than loyal to the truth.

3) People's economic beliefs are usually built on good intentions, and they confuse good intentions with good policies.

4) The counterintuitive truth that bottom-up innovation solves problems more efficiently than top down management is anathema to most people, who prefer to outsource their thinking to authority figures.