Follow this link to the article in Newsweek by Michael Hirsh.

Hirsh starts off by discussing the news that George Soros has launched a $50 million effort to purge economics of its free-market zeal.

He then goes on to discuss the disarray in the field of economics at the moment. It is an enlightening discussion even if Hirsh’s understanding of it is fatally flawed.

I can’t help but wonder if Hirsh suffers from the general innumeracy of the American public. He takes ideas that require real numbers (as in the mathematical definition of real numbers) to analyze, but seems to reduce it to the two binary digits.  It is not a question of whether or not we need to have financial regulation.  We have to be able to figure out how much to have.  I get suspicious of writers or of economic experts who can only think in yes or no absolutes.  Certainly George Soros is not one of those people.

Michael Hirsh is also the author of At War with Ourselves: Why America Is Squandering Its Chance to Build a Better World.