The trouble with economists (one of the troubles, anyway) is that they have lost all interest in the real world.

Far too much of economic theory amounts to nothing more than the useless proposition that "If the world were very different than it is (perfect competition, factor mobility, and foresight, no fallacy of composition nor prisoners' dilemma, plus non destructible money, etc. etc.), then things would be very different than they are (there would be no involuntary unemployment, nor any need to write books on macroeconomics.)" Actually "theorists" cannot prove even this. To prove it they would have to set up a different world with these specifications and see what happens, which, of course, they can't.

So why do economists delight in spinning elaborate theories about a non-existent universe? Why don't they get on with the task of becoming "humbly useful, like dentists," as Keynes once put it?

John H. Hotson

– from Economic Reform, July 1992