Economists as priesthood - Robert H. Nelson
The economics profession is the priesthood of a powerful secular religion - or, more accurately of a set of secular religions, as they have been developed in the theories of leading schools of economics of the modern age.
Beneath the surface of their formal economic theorizing, economists are engaged in an act of delivering religious messages. Correctly undesrtood, these messages are seen to be promises of the true path to salvation in this world - to a new heaven on earth.
Because this path follows along a route of economic progress, and because economists are the ones - or so it is believed by many people - with the technical understanding to show the way, it falls to the members of the economics profession (assisted by other social scientists) to assume the traditional role of the priesthood.
Robert H. Nelson, Economics as Religion, p.xx
Beneath the surface of their formal economic theorizing, economists are engaged in an act of delivering religious messages. Correctly undesrtood, these messages are seen to be promises of the true path to salvation in this world - to a new heaven on earth.
Because this path follows along a route of economic progress, and because economists are the ones - or so it is believed by many people - with the technical understanding to show the way, it falls to the members of the economics profession (assisted by other social scientists) to assume the traditional role of the priesthood.
Robert H. Nelson, Economics as Religion, p.xx
posted by Marcel at 8:35 AM
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