Should economists and other experts remain politically neutral?
Some thoughts on an op-ed written by a Boston University economics professor in response to Economists for Romney, a group of professional economists basically asserting that Romney's economic plan is better than Obama's. The article also notes Paul Krugman as basically doing the same thing for the democratic party. The author asserts that this is doing a disservice to economists's duty to objectivity and makes claims in excess of the available evidence.
It also notes a failed campaign for presidency on the part of the article's author. I have a feeling that the following might have something to do with why he lost:
Having run for president on the Americans Elect platform before it was disbanded in May, I may be questioned about my own impartiality in objecting to the politicization of economics. But in my short campaign, I limited my public statements and Web postings to the policies I favor, and I almost entirely avoided any criticisms of either the president’s or former governor’s positions. I did this because I was running as an economist, not as a politician.
Like it or not running as a politician seems to be a requirement to get elected and attack ads seem to be disliked but probably effective.
Should economists have to distance themselves from stating an informed opinion? That seems unreasonable to me. Given that I spend a lot of time around computers, e.g., if someone asks me about buying a computer am I allowed to assert either "buy a Mac" or "don't buy a Mac"?
Also interesting to note what the author of the op-ed considers to be objective:
why does the U.S. save and invest next to nothing? The answer is the income effect. Every administration starting with Dwight Eisenhower’s has expanded America’s Ponzi scheme, which takes resources from young savers (including those not yet born whose current spending is zero) and gives them to old spenders. This huge intergenerational redistribution has produced an enormous increase in the absolute and relative consumption of the elderly.
This is just what the life-cycle model of saving predicts. If you take money from the young and tell them they will get it back in spades when old, and then give this money to retirees, the following will, as a matter of theory and practice, happen: The elderly will go shopping, the young won’t bother saving, national consumption will rise, and domestic investment will fall.
In the US the likelihood of voting increases with age, meaning that those most likely to benefit from the current approach are also the most likely to vote. As a result, statements like the above about social security seem likely to ensure that you won't be elected, even if the effects noted are in fact true and might result in significant worldwide economic problems in the coming years.
(I haven't seem any current counterpart to Economists for Romney from Democrat-leaning economists but, based on an Economist survey during the last US presidential election, most economists then preferred Obama over McCain.)