Before it even hits shelves, Mariana Mazzucato’s newest book recycles ideas that economists have already dismantled.

Economics is a peculiar science. On the one hand, it is the queen of the social sciences and offers a powerful logic for understanding the world. On the other, as Henry Hazlitt put it, it is haunted by more fallacies than any other study known to man. People simply love to misunderstand economics.

Ironically, this presents a profit opportunity to those who choose to exploit people’s willing ignorance…especially if they are economists. Then they can present popular fallacies as seemingly insightful critiques or even novel takes. Because they are from the inside — one of “them” — people are willing to take their word for it. 

University College London economist Mariana Mazzucato is a case in point. She has made a name for herself writing books and consulting policymakers on how the State can be used to produce “free lunches.” Books like The Entrepreneurial State and Mission Economy argue that the State can be an effective low- or no-cost shortcut to prosperity and that it should therefore be used liberally by policymakers. 

Any economist worth his salt would naturally object that there are no “free lunches.” Nothing is without opportunity cost, which is why we must economize. But this “dismal” view, albeit true, is often rejected by those who wish to believe in a mystical world in which money trees exist and scarcity does not. Unfortunately, Mazzucato and others are happy to provide rationalizations for those who don’t understand basic economics.

...read more at thedailyeconomy.org