Abstract
The professional experts on inflation, the economists, have long preened themselves on the scientific nature of their enquiries. For two hundred years, ever since Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations, economists have been busy refining concepts, gathering facts, constructing models, and laying claim to be practitioners of the most rigorous and scientific of all the social sciences. From being a despised and vulgar utilitarian branch of knowledge economics has risen, side by side with industry, to become one of the most acceptable academic disciplines.
Creeping inflation is the malaria of the modern mixed economy. Like malaria it is uncomfortable to live with and just will not go away. But unlike the case of malaria, there seems to be no known cure for creeping inflation that is better than the disease.
Paul Samuelson, Newsweek (1971).
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Notes and References
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© 1976 Andrew Gamble and Paul Walton
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Gamble, A., Walton, P. (1976). Economics and the Experts. In: Capitalism in Crisis. Critical Social Studies. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-15707-5_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-15707-5_2
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