I think, on the other hand, that if we were all properly trained in economics, particularly the prize winning economics of recent decades, we would all be dealing in risk management and derivatives. Wouldn't that be a wonderful world! Economics is the most sleazy of the sciences by far. But people with money seem to believe in it, mainly because economists really suck up to people with money, I think.

That's all economists do is politics.

A plausible case can be made that politics is the primary activity of all people in academia. Of course, the job of a "professor" is to profess, i.e. advocate for some point of view on some intellectual question. I think of Prof. Fred Hoyle and his theory of continuous creation of matter. He advocated, with vigor, for this theory for several years. No one doubted his sincerity. To the extent that economics is academic science, economists do politics as part of their profession.

In political science, there are advocates for the idea that all ideas are situational and relative, and that there is no underlying truth to any intellectual construct. It is from this tradition that I derive my first statement here. I doubt the literal truth of the relativist position, my self, but I can profess it pretty well. I don't know where Nordhaus really stands. I have trouble believing in his sincerity.

So, there appears to me to be 'good politics' and 'bad politics'. Mine, of course, is good ;-)