Please bear with me through this first part, it is a bit technical, and of interest only to some, but it does help make my point, so please stick around.

In the C programming language there is a "switch/case" statement. Basically this says "check variable X, if its value is A, do this, if B do this, if C do this." There is one feature of this syntax that draws ire whenever a critic mentions it. That is the "break" statement. Basically, at the end of each option, you need to add a "break", or else the code will continue to execute through each remaining step. It was done that way because C was once very close to machine language, and so the syntax followed the machine instructions, and thus needed a command to tell it to jump to the end of the section. And thus critics often ask "with modern compilers, why do we still need the break? It is worthless."

In fact, this criticism has been raised by so many critics of C, that it has become one of those facts "everyone knows".

The problem is, it is wrong. You see, if you want to execute X if the variable is A, Y if the variable is B, and Z if the variable is C, then don't use a case statement, there is "if/else" for that that. Case, by requiring the rbeak, actually makes possible something pretty clever, which cannot be done with "if/else". That is, if A, then X, Y and Z, if B then Y and Z, if C then Z. In other words, by intentionally omitting the break, or by using breaks only at select points, you can allow for overlapping options. So, this "stupid" idea actually allows for some pretty clever programming shortcuts.

In other words, the command everyone knows is a worthless holdover, is actually a very powerful tool that is simply too unfamiliar to critics for them to use properly*.

Why do I mention this? Because there are so many facts "everyone knows" in politics which are equally wrong.  Howver, as "everyone knows" these facts, I felt starting with them might alienate some part of my readers, and instead starting with something unfamiliar to most might actually help introduce the topic without stepping on any toes.

But eventually we must enter contentious areas, so let us proceed.

Probably the best example is a topic I have harped on a lot lately, and that is the "fact" that the gold standard is anachronistic and even dangerous to an economy. That the gold standard would retard growth, perhaps even collapse the economy, and the only viable choice is between various types of managed currencies.If you speak to any traditional economist and almost any politician, these statements will be treated as the most settled of facts. However, there is absolutely nothing to back up such statements. In fact, those supporting them even try to hide their origins. You see, the gold standard was destroyed by "practical" men without a theoretical basis, but, finding themselves facing criticism, they sought out some academic backing, and found the writings of Keynes. However, as Keynes' big spending theories fell out of favor among many, they had to start obscuring their theoretical underpinnings. And so, today, you will hear nominally conservative academic economists uttering Keynesian doctrine while denying their theory has anything to do with Keynes. It is a bit embarrassing, but it is the truth. Modern "macroeconomics" owes everything to Keynes, yet most schools deny his influence. And yet every one of his assertions is treated as absolute truth, despite the fact that academic often admit almost all of his arguments are flawed. (Even if they don't recognize Hazlitt's devastating rebuttal of his General Theory, most recognize that Keynes made some pretty dubious assertions in his works.)

It is strange to imagine that the conclusions of a flawed theory are still treated as absolute truths, without the slightest doubt. Yet they are.

But that is only one example, there are dozens, perhaps hundreds. FDR ended the depression. Or the counter-fallacy, that World War II did. The government ended child labor. Capitalism inherently causes a boom-bust cycle. Monopolies are unavoidable in certain areas of the economy. Only government intervention will protect worker safety and health. The free market tends to aggregate economic power in a few large firms. Protectionism is our only defense against "economic warfare". Tariffs and subsidies help the domestic economy. And so on and so on.

But this is old territory. Rebutting such claims is why I established the"Bad Economics" series. What I am interested in in this essay is determining why such claims have become "common knowledge".

I know why computer writers have been so faithful in their attacks on C. C was once the preeminent programming language, the standard against which new languages were judged. So, to show a flaw in C, and show how a new language avoided it, was de rigeur in computer journalism. And so, as writers drew upon earlier essays in their hyping of the newest language, the claim that the "break" statement was one of the greatest weaknesses of C was repeated over and over. And, as the computer industry is largely driven by novelty and hype, those essays were read far and wide, and so the claim gained wide circulation, until, eventually, it became common knowledge, no matter how inaccurate.

So what drives these many economic falsehoods?

Obviously politicians favor them, as they tend to encourage turning economic power over tot he state, but politicians have always been power hungry and bad economic theories have not always held ascendancy. So what happened?

I think the answer is twofold. First, for the general public, most of their knowledge of economics comes from journalists. And journalists, as i argued elsewhere, have a largely pro-government bias. They may criticize specific officials or administrations, but they tend to believe that good government can save the world, and they define good government as activist government.

In addition, journalist and some of the public get their economic information from economists. Academic economist, by and large, are as liberal as other academic departments (with a handful of exceptions), and so it is hardly surprising academia would endorse these beliefs. But beyond that, economics as a career, tends to be dominated by employers who are either government agencies, or in industries heavily regulated by the government (banking and investment).  And this reality has two results. First, economist are simply used to large government, as it is part of their everyday reality, and so, whatever their personal beliefs, they tend to see government as a given, and rarely theorize about what would happen with less or no government involvement. Second, though the government probably does not explicitly say so, economists who make too much anti-government noise may find their lives a little less comfortable. I know this sounds paranoid, but do not forget the recent incident where insurers were threatened with investigation for criticizing Obama's health care reform to subscribers. Whether the government engages in such explicit threats or not, those whose livelihoods depend upon the whim of regulators are quite aware of the fact, and, even if 99% of regulators are honest and fair, the risk of running into a member of the other 1% makes being too outspoken a very real risk.

And, in the end, that is a problem for o much of our society. As I described in "The Failure of Peer Review", academia has been influenced by the government to some degree. A corruption that the recent email theft has shown to be even more widespread than I thought. So, is it too implausible to think that people whose livelihoods are in the hands of government might be slightly less candid than they would otherwise?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

* Oddly, a site I otherwise enjoy makes this assertion. Then again, as his other assertions are so correct, I don't mind plugging his site again, even if he is wrong on this point.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

POSTSCRIPT

Allow me to illustrate my argument with a small personal example. I was one time tasked with assessing the relative merits of Java, C, C++ and Perl for various projects on various platforms. At the time, given existing technology, I found Java had real problems performing under load. It was fine with very light loads, comparable to C, but under heavy load it could take hundreds of times as long as even Perl. I knew the VP of our company was pushing us to move to Java, but I still presented a paper to my immediate superior arguing that converting to Java would simply be impossible, as during peak usage, even with many times more hardware, we simply could not support our current traffic. My boss presented that paper to the VP and, at the end of the quarter, was downsized, and I was transferred to a division that was due to be eliminated.

Do you think in my subsequent reports I was anywhere near as candid about the effects of technology? Actually, I was, as I hated the job so much I was hoping for a severance package to give me time to find a new job, but had I wanted to keep my job, such an experience would probably have convinced me, at that job and all future ones, to keep my mouth shut when my discoveries went against office orthodoxy.

And that example is why I think it is very plausible that a profession so strongly subject to the whims of government, such as economics, could easily be swayed to accept assertions of dubious validity. Not in all cases. Many academic and working economists believe in Keynesian nonsense, big government and the rest. But in some cases, I am certain the environment, which favors those perspectives, silences working and academic economists who don't want to risk their jobs or reputations.

POSTSCRIPT II

I have to add a technical correction to the first part. In addition to being an easy way to allow translation directly from C to machine language, I forgot that the "break" was also needed for multiple matches. Thus if A, B and C should all execute the same code, we put "case a:" then "case b" then "case c", followed by the code and the break. That way all "fall through" to the same code. Without the break syntax, we would either have to reproduce the same code for all three (or use a function call for all three), or would have to alter the syntax to put multiple matches on one line. So there is another practical purpose to the "worthless" break command.