How and why everyday conversations differ from academic ones and how and why academic conversations clash with political ones

What good does all the modernist and late modernist writing in economics do? And why should you, a non-economist, care? I sympathize with such questions – especially when economists themselves have become ironic and cynical about the relevance of their science. When the belief that economic models matter for policy-making has been displaced by the belief that economists do better keeping their discipline to themselves, all the money spent on economics benefits . . . whom?