Political Identity and Economists’ Perceptions of Capitalist Crises

Abstract

Radical critics have long impugned conventional economists as ideologically committed to capitalism and blind to its historical dynamics and crisis tendencies. This report evaluates this longstanding criticism. Surveying academic economists in the United States, we find the field quite skeptical of the prospects of capitalist crises. Despite considerable consensus, political orientation is a highly significant predictor of respondents’ outlooks. We close by interpreting our findings from the standpoint of current research in political psychology.