If one reads blogs or columns by economists, one finds that, over time, there is a kind of economic celebrity offered up for admiration, people whose words should be attended to with special care. I don't mean paying attention to the ideas of Warren Buffet about investing, or attending to the words of the Federal Reserve Board about what they do. I mean the attention paid to discussions by folks like Peter Thiel about social and political issues, or Andreesson or Elon Musk and so on. Sometimes expressed, and sometimes not, is the idea that these people have special insight in virtue of their accomplishments. It is a bit odd for economists to take such a view. What have they done? Become quite rich, of course. They have done other things, like go to college, sometimes an advanced degree, but nothing much that would lead one to think they have any particular insight into social or political matters. It should be needless to say, but isn't, that they have the same right to engage with social and political topics in the ways they think appropriate. That is beside my point. My point, as I asked, is that special weight is given to their views, in particular by public economists because they are so wealthy. Wealth stands in for, or rather is, qualification for expertise, for acuity.
Consider this: raise with the economist the issue of just wages, or fair wages, or what wage is deserved. The standard answer is that such a question has no answer because it makes no sense in the end. There is no desert in an economy. no account of justice sets wages, there is no moral claim to a particular wage. Wages are left to a market. the right wage is whatever it is that the participants end up with. Value is not based on desert, is not based on merit. In fact, one of the prized features of markets is that they do away with the questions of merit.
If that is so, then the idolatry of people like Thiel is foolish. Economists, i.e., Cowan and his colleagues, are being silly in paying special attention to the views of folks like Thiel, unless all that motivates is the thought that the very rich have large influence and it is wise to attend to the influential no matter what the views. But that is not what is going on. What is going on is that attention is paid on the view that Thiel et al. have more insight, are wiser, deserve more attention. They merit the attention. But that cannot be squared with the fact that markets are not based on and do not reflect merit.
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