The global crisis unleashed with the collapse of major financial institutions has laid bare many pretensions about economics as a hard science. Many establishment economists failed to see the onset of the crisis and harbored illusions about the efficiency of free markets and the ability of markets to regulate themselves. As a result of the crisis, there has been much thinking, rethinking, and handwringing about the causes of economic crises. Old ideological and methodological debates have reemerged.
It seems clear in the light of recent experience and a close look at the historical record about past crises, that there is much in economics that is a question of politics and policy choices with implications for who benefits and who loses from economic policy decisions.