ABSTRACT
The most conspicuous of many instances was of course the protest of 1028 economists against the Smoot-Hawley tariff bill. Nothing that the economists have done in recent years has been so creditable—and this is true whether you happen to believe that they were right, in this instance, or not. If the economists have made grave blunders it is not only because they deal with the wavering and incalculable behavior of man, but because they are themselves men, whose behavior is likely to be wavering and incalculable. Economists, as a class, are somewhat more flexible than theologians but considerably less so than astrophysicists. Economic planners have given most of their attention to the technical details of their plans, and very little to the selling of their ideas. The abolition of poverty had not yet been officially promised; but its whole economic and metaphysical framework was already present in this announcement of a millennium which still remains around the corner.
