From The Freeman, is Somalia a failed state or economic success?; and a review of Inclined to Liberty: The Futile Attempt to Suppress the Human Spirit by Lou Carabini. A review of Free Market Madness: Why Human Nature Is at Odds with Economics — And Why It Matters by Peter Ubel. The return of history: After the crash, economics will have to acknowledge its methodological failures and come to resemble an art rather than a science. Is the dismal science really a science? A call for radically rethinking economic theory: When responsibility is assigned for the financial crisis, Wall Street and Washington are the usual culprits — but that leaves out the biggest perpetrator of all. The crisis is changing how macroeconomics is taught. Justin Fox on wresting the economic debate away from the economists. How computers will save economics: The downfall of the ivory tower theorists is a laptop on every graduate student's desk. Nudge nudge, wink wink: Andrew Ferguson on behavioral economics — the governing theory of Obama’s nanny state. An article on using neuroscience to understand the bounds of rationality. A review of The Irrational Economist: Making Decisions in a Dangerous World. An interview with Roger E.A. Farmer, author of How the Economy Works (and more); and Farmer on a new macroeconomics paradigm for the 21st century (and part 2). A book salon on Economics for the Rest of Us by Moshe Adler. From Fair, for media, "class war" has wealthy victims: Rich getting richer seldom labeled as belligerents, the media is fascinated with the recession’s richest victims and public opinion is mainly a prop for corporate press. At what point does the ubiquity of the undeserving rich become so corrosive in a democracy that it sparks a backlash that discredits capitalism altogether?
