The last sentence of the book states: Economics is too important to be left to economists. What do you think this means?

Quotes from the last portion of the book. Choose the one you like you like the most, and then explain to the class why you chose this one.

1. ECONOMICS IMAGINES A world of irrepressible dynamism. People get inspired, change jobs, turn from making machines to making music, quit and decide to wander the world. New businesses get born, rise, fail, and die, are replaced by timelier and more brilliant ideas. Productivity grows in staccato leaps, nations grow richer. Opportunities are everywhere, waiting to be discovered and grabbed by those who need them.  (p.323)

2. Policy is powerful. Governments have the power to do enormous good but also important damage, and so do large private and bilateral donors. A lot of that policy stood on the shoulders of good and bad economics (and the social sciences more generally). p.323

3. Bad economics underpinned the grand giveaways to the rich and the squeezing of welfare programs, sold the idea that the state is impotent and corrupt and the poor are lazy, and paved the way to the current stalemate of exploding inequality and angry inertia. Blinkered economics told us trade is good for everyone, and faster growth is everywhere. It is just a matter of trying harder and, moreover, worth all the pain it might take. Blind economics missed the explosion in inequality all over the world, the increasing social fragmentation that came with it, and the impending environmental disaster, delaying action, perhaps irrevocably.

4. What is common among a drought-affected farmer in India, a youth in Chicago’s South Side, and a fifty-something white man who was just laid off? While they may have problems, they are not the problem. They are entitled to be seen for who they are and to not be defined by the difficulties besieging them. Time and again, we have seen in our travels in developing countries that hope is the fuel that makes people go. Defining people by their problems is turning circumstance into essence. It denies hope. A natural response is then to wrap oneself into this identity, with treacherous consequences for society at large.

5. The goal of social policy, in these times of change and anxiety, is to help people absorb the shocks that affect them without allowing those shocks to affect their sense of themselves. Unfortunately, this is not the system we have inherited. Our social protection still has its Victorian overlay, and all too many politicians do not try to hide their contempt for the poor and disadvantaged. Even with a shift in attitude, social protection will require a profound rethinking and an injection of lots of imagination.