BOOK REVIEW: How capitalism led to economics replacing religion
John Rapley’s Twilight of the Money Gods takes readers on a fascinating journey through the history of economic thought
TWILIGHT OF THE MONEY GODS: Economics as a Religion and How it all went wrong John Rapley Simon and Schuster Tory politician Michael Gove declared during the Brexit referendum campaign that the British people had had enough of "experts" — by which he meant the economists who were predicting the disastrous consequences of the UK leaving the EU. He was widely mocked at the time and the disastrous course of the Brexit talks suggests that the economists will have the last laugh, even though the damage awaiting the British economy will not be a laughing matter. Even so, the thrust of John Rapley’s argument in Twilight of the Money Gods is that, however dishonest Gove may have been about the consequences of Brexit, he was right to query the credentials of economics as a discipline and the status of economists as prophetic seers. Under modern capitalism, Rapley argues, economics has replaced religion and economists have become its priests. Yet rather than leading us to the promised land, t...
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