Economists who are always wrong

Mani Basharzad has a permanently topical CAPX piece about economists who are always wrong.


Why do we listen to economists who are always wrong?

• 30 so-called 'top economists' have called for a wealth tax in the UK
• Left-wing economists hold free markets to an impossible standard
• Markets are not perfect, but the process of trial and error they encourage moves us closer to efficiency

On July 28, more than 30 so-called ‘top economists’ called for a wealth tax in the UK. Glance at the list of signatories and you’ll see the usual names who oppose almost any market reform: Thomas Piketty, Ha-Joon Chang and Martín Guzmán. Ironically, just over a year ago, many of them signed another letter warning against Javier Milei’s reform programme in Argentina, which they described as ‘potentially harmful’ to the Argentine people.

Fast forward to today, and historian Niall Ferguson calls Argentina’s economic turnaround a ‘man-made miracle’. Milei ended Argentina’s fiscal deficit for the first time in 123 years. Annual inflation plunged from 211.4% in 2023 to 43.5% by mid-2025. UNICEF reports that 1.7 million children have been lifted out of poverty since he took office and according to Econométrica’s EMAE, the economy grew by 8% year-on-year in April.


The piece is short and well worth reading. Apart from economists who are always wrong, it raises a wider question about academics in other fields who are always wrong too.

As we know, we have ended up with a political culture where being wrong can be politically, socially, professionally and financially advantageous. That's a formidable array of benefits.