Debunking David Brooks

David Brooks wrote The Two Cultures which is mostly about bashing liberal economists.

"The economic approach embraced by the most prominent liberals over the past few years is mostly mechanical. The economy is treated like a big machine; the people in it like rational, utility maximizing cogs. The performance of the economic machine can be predicted with quantitative macroeconomic models."

Paul Krugman protests on several grounds in A Mechanical Manifesto.

Karl Smith comments in Brooks on Economics in part on Brook's ending: "It all makes one doubt the wizardry of the economic surgeons and appreciate the old wisdom of common sense: simple regulations, low debt, high savings, hard work, few distortions. You don’t have to be a genius to come up with an economic policy like that."

Smith makes an interesting point, "Capitalism is sometimes described as the Art of Going into Debt. Usury laws once prevented the loaning of money for interest. This implied that all investment had to be financed with high personal savings. The breakdown of these laws and, with it the taking on of enormous debts, was instrumental in the formation of our entire economic system. Similarly, no one doubts the hard work of the Amish. I think few would want their economy. Again, capital – and the ability to borrow it and trade it – not labor is the key to capitalism."