yes, of course.

...but it's a little bit of a silly strawman -- or at least addressing a very weak version of an argument. I was surprised at Sven Beckert talking negatively about "the economy" as if it's a living being with moral agency that we must care for... but I never see anybody (...but a blockhead!) say that. All thoughtful people I know understand that "the" economy is a shorthand for businesses and consumers aggregated in some way. Broken window fallacy; spending goes somewhere etc; consumption means destruction etc.

So yeah, this is a typical example of a retarded consumption-numbers-only view of "the" economy which no serious thinker, insider or outside of economics holds. That there are retards, and hot-shot history professors, that do isn't exactly surprising... but do you think undergraduate econ education is to blame for this?