Mark Thoma approvingly quotes a Stephen Gordon arguing that laymen don't understand economics in precisely the same way the don't understand evolution -- they're too quick to believe in an intelligent designer.
Intelligent Design as applied to economics takes pretty much the same form as it does with biology: "What we observe couldn't have just happened; it's obviously the work of some Greater Power." When it comes to evolution, the Greater Power generally takes the form of an omnipotent diety. The counterpart in economics is the 'economic elite': the existence of inequality is interpreted as evidence that those who have done well did so by design.
This seems almost indescribably bizarre. What does the last sentence even mean? That those who've done well have done so by accident? That wealthy elites -- yes, there are such people -- don't work to influence public policy in such a way that they become richer? And that wealthy elites are thus not rational economic actors who work to maximize their utility? That marginal tax rates, Fed policy, and distributionary decisions are set according to natural law? How does Gordon respond to the work of economists like Saez and Piketty? Robert Gordan and Ian Dew-Becker?
There are few disciplines I find one-tenth so valuable as economics. But this is theological thinking, not empirical exploration. And it's done to shut down, not open up, discussion. Gordon is angry that non-economists don't understand him. Reading this, it would appear that "non-economists" don't agree with his assumptions. And so he's arguing his interlocutors are little more than savages. It reminds me of this article (and the ensuing debate) between Bob Kuttner and Paul Krugman, which dealt with Krugman's tendency to argue -- and dismiss -- solely through expertise. Well worth a read, particularly given that the last decade has proved Kuttner rather prescient, and many top economists -- Krugman included -- now profess significant agreement with Kuttner's labor-liberal critique, a critique they once derided as nothing more than "economist-bashing."
