How To Fix The Economy

[Dayuhan]

The tool for this is called preferences; people need to somehow express their preferences for/against the side effects in monetary terms and then economists have the tools to factor them in.

People don't always express their preferences in monetary terms. Sometimes they express them by voting the bastards out of office, or by hanging the bastards from lamp-posts. Economists may not be able to factor those reactions into an equation, but the bastards - those who make policy - have to.

Plate tectonics, as a theory, is well enough established that almost all geologists subscribe to it. Same with evolution and biologists.

True, but once you get past the broad guidelines there's a fair bit of contention within those professions as well, though it's a good deal less public and receives a lot less attention, since the subject matter has a lot less immediate impact on daily life. When the subject is money, there's a lot more scrutiny and the inaccuracies and uncertainties get noticed a whole lot more.

To use an example already cited, most economists would agree on the basic framework of the relationship between supply and demand. Take it to specific real-word cases with unique contextual details, and there will be a lot less agreement. I suspect that this is true in other disciplines as well: biologists may agree on the broad framework of evolution, but get down to the specifics of how it works and where it's going and the agreement will evaporate... not that many people will notice.