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I've been reading "The Wisdom of Crowds" today (and blogging about it elsewhere), and came across several instances of the thing I hate the most about economics.

"Plank-road fever was a vivid example of a phenomenon that economists call an 'information cascade.'" (Surowiecki, pg 53) [bold mine]

Why have I fixated on this sentence? I'll answer with two questions:

1. Why did Suroweicki use the text that I've placed in bold, instead of simple writing "of a phenomenon called an 'information cascade?'"

2. Have you ever read a physics book and seen a phrase like "the cycle of the earth's tides is a vivid example of a phenomenon that physicists call 'gravity?'"

The point is that economics, whether being discussed by economists or non-economists, is constantly self-referential and self-legitimating. Just for kicks, try googling "what economists call" and just skimming through the results.

Actually, I'll do it for you.

"what physicists call" : 8,380 results
"what mathematicians call" : 9,480 results
"what social scientists call" : 9,970 results
"what anthropologists call" : 6,780 results
"what economists call" : 131,000 results

Seriously? Seriously. Economists (or people writing about economists) use this phrase more than 13 times more often than any other intellectual discipline.

I actually tried this on about 50 different disciplines and professions, and the only other one that topped ten thousand results was "doctors" [37,000 results]. "Dentists," on the other hand, numbered 444. I think that's a topic for another post.

Anyway. The reason I bring this up is not to harp on a narrow linguistic idiosyncrasy in a particular field. Rather, I see this as a symptom of the general problem that economists are continually legitimating their field using a historical argument rather than a logical one, and that there is a consistent failure to challenge the field's assumptions.

Obviously, sustainability and externalities are the obvious example here, but more generally is the assumption that continual growth is a viable goal. Also in the mix are fundamental questions about the purpose of economics - what is growth for? or who is growth for?

Instead of examining these questions, we are instead barraged by constant reminders that economists are smart; economics is an important, complex, historically-validated field; and that X is what economists call Y.

It's worth returning now to the original quote, from Surowiecki: "Plank-road fever was a vivid example of a phenomenon that economists call an 'information cascade.'" This quote comes just a few pages after his analysis of risk-averse behavior by mutual fund managers, their tendency to invest in the same funds as their peers, in order to appear to be making the correct investments. This herd mentality is echoed in the behavior of economists described above: the tendency to propagate the pillars of economics (or create more nuanced models), rather than raising contrarian and fundamental challenges.

This HAS to change. Economists HAVE to be willing to question the very core of their discipline, or they're eventually going to be found out by the public, and relegated to obscurity.

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I'm also about to start reading the recent 30 year update of "The Limits to Growth," which I'm hoping will arm me with more material for this debate.