Excerpt
The public lends economists a power of influence, admired or envied, vaunted or suspected, but a power of influence whose reality is not fully established, if I am to judge by the divergent statements of two eminent representatives of the profession.
John Maynard Keynes, arguably the most famous economist of the last century, is categorical: " ideas of economists and political philosophers, whether right or wrong, are more powerful than is generally believed. The truth is, there is little else that governs the world ", and he adds, without realizing it, politicians are often prisoners of the conceptions of a "defunct economist ".
For Georges Stigler, on the other hand, the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, one of the most important events in English and European economic history in the 19th century, owes nothing to scholarly reflection : " if Cobden (the economist who inspired them) had stammered in Yiddish and Peel, (the Prime Minister who implemented them) had been a narrow and stupid man, England would nonetheless have taken the road of free trade... "
