Beliefs shape worldview

Russ Roberts make a point that came up in the ASET book discussion last month when he writes:


The evidence for the Keynesian worldview is very mixed. Most economists come down in favor or against it because of their prior ideological beliefs. Krugman is a Keynesian because he wants bigger government. I’m an anti-Keynesian because I want smaller government. Both of us can find evidence for our worldviews. Whose evidence is better? I’m not sure it’s a meaningful question. My empirical points about Keynesianism won’t convince Krugman. His point don’t convince me. I am not saying that we will never get any kind of decisive evidence on the question. I’m saying it sure isn’t here now.

This caused some consternation which is chronicled here along with my response. In particular I justified my claim about Krugman by pointing out that he rarely (ever) admits the possibility he might be wrong, that he is uncharitable about the motives and findings of people who do not agree with him (I gave some examples), and that he cherry-picks data to make his case and ignores data on the other side. This to me, is being an ideologue rather than a truth-seeker. That is a little unfair–he might be a truth-seeker in his heart but keeps it to himself when he writes in the New York Times. As I pointed out–he writes differently in his books where he will often say, could be, might, we’re not uncertain, and so on.

But the key point I was trying to make when invoking ideology, is that Krugman and I and most economists have a worldview. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s not an indictment or a criticism. It’s simply true. That worldview may be based on casual observation, various principles that make sense to us about how the world works, facts of various kinds, and more statistically sophisticated forms of evidence.