Matt O'Brien — Dave Brat’s unorthodox economics: Adam Smith ‘was from a red state’

So what are Brat's economic beliefs? Well, he's focused on, to his mind, two related questions: why rich countries are so rich, and what ethics has to do with economics. Let's look at them both....

In short, Brat thinks that culture matters—and so does ethics. Now, that's not a word you hear economists use very much nowadays, but Brat points out that they used to....

...according to Brat, that unlike economists today, Smith "knew that the world of thought must be unified"—that "positive analysis and normative analysis must meet in the end." In other words, Brat thinks economists have to get back to telling us how to live, and not just how to live efficiently. Or at least be explicit about it, so we can judge whether we like the ethics behind their economics.

I agree with this in principle, although I disagree with Brat on the details. Suppressing the normative and prescriptive content of assumptions in order to appear more positive and science-like is disingenuous or ignorant.

As Keynes wrote in a letter to Harrod (787, 4 July 1938), "economics is essentially a moral science and not a natural science. That is to say, it employs introspection and judgments of value."

The Washington Post — Wonkblog
Dave Brat’s unorthodox economics: Adam Smith ‘was from a red state’
Matt O'Brien