This is going to be really big picture. It's about the differences between formal economic theory, on the one hand, and ordinary thought about economic questions, on the other. It pits the views of an anonymous college professor (as reported by a freshman student) against the views of a famous US Senator (as reported by CNN).
I have a 19-year-old son (with a different last name from mine) who is a freshman in college, taking first-year college economics from a teacher who received his PhD at Wharton and worked in various business economics jobs before returning to academe. My son is finding the dismal science, well, uninspiring. He almost dropped the course after the first class because he thought he was being asked to become a true believer and study "theology rather than religion." My husband and I encouraged him to stick it out, and we pointed out that the online syllabus showed that the second lecture was about the question whether economics is the "the dark side," so maybe he was going to get more than one perspective. Here's the e-mail we got home after the second lecture:
Subject: why economics is the dark side
I thought I'd update you on that lecture you both seemed so excited about.
Prof. [X] explained that Economics is a valuable tool for modeling social interactions, but cautioned against too much faith in the market. He pointed out that unfettered capitalism can lead to the accumulation of capital in the hands of an elite minority, who can use their wealth to influence the creation of political, social, and economic structures that subjugate large portions of the populace and interrupt the free flow of resources to further concentrate power in the hands of the few.
oh wait, no, that's not what he said, that's the truth.
According to Prof. X, many are skeptical of Economics and capitalism for the following reasons:
1) Traditionally, the upper class has scorned participation in business, making commerce the province of a minority without political rights, who become scapegoats for social ills (Jews are the best example of such a group, but Indian and Chinese diasporas are other good examples).
2) Moralists hate economists because they think it's wrong to say people are motivated by greed.
3) Marx is a synthesis of the above two attitudes. Marx was a big ol' anti-semite, and this explains his skepticism for capitalism (oddly enough, the fact that Marx was a non-practicing Jew didn't really come up).
Ah! intellectual sophistication. [End of e-mail]