Admission that neo-liberal economics is bunk found in -- a New York Times obituary

You really should read more obituaries.

Seriously.

This one, in the New York Times of 21 February 2017, has not been read by many people. And with the demise of rock and roll pioneer Chuck Berry and some more bone headed conjectures about bad Putin or the Golfer n Chief, the chances that anybody will go back to the obit of Kenneth Arrow are nil.

Even economists will agree on that.

Modern free marketeers love the gentleman for this part of his work:

Professor Arrow proved that their system of equations mathematically cohere: Prices exist that bring all markets into simultaneous equilibrium (whereby every item produced at the equilibrium price would be voluntarily purchased). And market competition puts society’s resources to good use: Competitive markets are efficient, in the language of economists.

Professor Arrow’s theorems set out the precise conditions under which Adam Smith’s famous conjecture in “The Wealth of Nations” holds true: that the “invisible hand” of market competition among self-serving individuals serves society well.

The math is good.

It proves that the invisible hand of the market of all those self-serving individuals - you and me included - works!

The marvelous policies that brought us various crashes, austerity, and assorted indignities like social services cuts were not for naught.

Except for the next paragraph in the obit, separated from the just quoted ones by a big headline that extols Arrow's work as having had Relevance Over Decades.

As was true of his earlier work on social choice, the magnitude of Professor Arrow’s theoretical insight was staggering. But, he made clear, his powerful conclusions about the workings of competitive markets held true only under ideal — that is to say, unrealistic — assumptions.

So, there you have it. The math is true but useless because the underlying assumptions are unrealistic.

All that counts in the eyes of the author of the obituary is that Professor Arrow proved that the economists’ workaday tools of supply-and-demand equations are built on a logically coherent foundation.

Which is pretty much exactly what most religions are: logically coherent foundations built on unrealistic assumptions.