Lively discussion goes on among economists, naturally, at the frontiers of knowledge, as it does in all fields. Here indeed disagreement is the rule—fortunately so, if economics is not to die from complacency and boredom. Until a few years ago, this kind of argument was sharpened by the Keynesian revolution that had shaken the profession. Other disciplines—even physics and medicine—from time to time experience similar convulsions. In their cases, however, such reversals of old beliefs have usually been interpreted as progress. Economists, who are their own worst press agents, have managed to make each other look needlessly foolish in the process.
There remains one other and quite different source of disputes: disagreement over goals. Today, for instance, some economists are more concerned over the hardships caused by unemployment, others more over those caused by inflation. Each side, then, of course, may make different recommendations. On the surface it looks like a quarrel over the right technique—doctors debating while the patient languishes. Fundamentally, we may be disagreeing over goals and values. That is our right as citizens. If any complaint is in order, the indictment should be for our failure to make abundantly clear, to ourselves as well as others, when we are speaking as technicians and when as citizens.
That it is not easy to sort out these two roles has been known to economists for a long time. Today the nuclear physicists, in their debate over H-bomb test suspension, and the biologists arguing over the effects of fallout, are experiencing something similar. Scientific objectivity is hard to maintain when one's ideals and beliefs become involved.
How good, then, in the last analysis, is economics? Can economists speak with assurance sufficient to inspire confidence? Is their advice worth following? I have been critical in what I have said of my science, because I believe that economics still has a long way to go. But if I am asked how good economics is, as of now, the unqualified answer is that the plus signs far exceed the minus signs.
Economics, to be sure, must confess to some obvious weaknesses, which I have made no effort to conceal. So, however, naust other disciplines. Doctors still can't cure the common cold, yet nobody thinks that medicine is a failure.
But economists can, without immodesty, point to substantial accomplishments. The Great Depression demonstrated that a modern economy cannot operate on laissez-faire principles. It needs the stabilizing action of government. Modern economics has provided the principles that underlie stabilization policy. On the basic features of this policy most economists see eye to eye—barring possible disagreement as to objectives. Differences occur mainly over details of procedure and timing.
Our stabilization policy, manifested in the Employment Act of 1946, has on the whole worked well. We have avoided major recessions, let alone a catastrophe on the scale of 1932. If it is said that the record nevertheless is very far from perfect, economists can reply that their advice is not always taken. When most economists recommend a tax cut, as they have done recently, and the political powers-that-be decide otherwise, economists are not responsible for the consequences. If conditions get worse, their advice will probably be taken in a hurry.
To avoid misunderstanding, I shall close on a note of caution. Economics is not an exact science, and few economists are likely to argue that it ever will be. The reasons lie in the difficulties of understanding and forecasting, which we noted earlier. But progress has been made and more is sure to come. That much can confidently be said. Furthermore, if economists, and those interested in their work, sometimes feel troubled and unsure, they may take comfort in the thought that absolute certainty is vouchsafed to no science and that complete conviction in this world can come only from ignorance.