How To Use Economics & Not Be Used by Economists (1/6) — Lynn Fries interviews Ha-Joon Chang

Tape and transcript. Ha-Joon Chang talks about his new book, Economics: The User's Guide.

In the late 19th century, early 20th century the then-rising school of economics, Neoclassical economics, which is today's dominant school of economics, decided that they want to become scientists. You know, in modern world the title of science has a great aura, because after all, that progress in scientific knowledge is what has built the modern world. So if you can call yourself scientist, you immediately get much greater credibility. And, I mean, that, this is what the Neoclassical economists have aimed to achieve since the late 19th century.

And the most important thing they did at the beginning to achieve this goal was to rename the subject. So it wasn't political economy anymore, because when you say politics, you're already implying that people may disagree, you know. But if you're a, a scientist, you cannot have that kind of disagreement. So it was really important to get rid of that word politics from the name of the subject so that they can now claim that this is free of ethical judgments, this is free of political disagreement, and therefore there is a science like physics or chemistry....

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How To Use Economics & Not Be Used by Economists (1/6)

Lynn Fries interviews Ha-Joon Chang, Reader in the Political Economy of Development at the University of Cambridge