We have an answer from James Buchanan, who has a book of collected essays titled “What Should Economists Do?” in which the first chapter lent its title to the whole collection. Buchanan notes that to answer the question, he had to “proceed squarely against the advice of a modern economist whose opinions I regard with respect, George Stigler.” Stigler said “that it is folly to become concerned with methodology before the age of sixty-five.” Buchanan also quotes Jacob Viner’s tautology, “economics is what economists do,” and Frank Knight’s reversal, “economists are those who do economics.”

After the humor, Buchanan gives us his answer: economists should focus on markets, not resource allocation. Even though many principles texts include resource allocation in their definitions of economics, Buchanan argues that economists ought to study “the various institutional arrangements that arise as a result of this form of activity.” By focusing on resource allocation, we are turning onto a path with a dead end—resource allocation problems have a mathematical solution, especially when given the agents’ utility functions and a set of resources. This is a dead end because not much more can be said after solving such a contrived problem. Instead, Buchanan wants economists to focus on “a unique sort of relationship, that which involves the cooperative association of individuals, one with another, even when individual interests are different.”

The body of economic knowledge is an essential element in the structure of human civilization; it is the foundation upon which modern industrialism and all the moral, intellectual, technological, and therapeutical achievements of the last centuries have been built. It rests with men whether they will make the proper use of the rich treasure with which this knowledge provides them or whether they will leave it unused. But if they fail to take the best advantage of it and disregard its teachings and warnings, they will not annul economics; they will stamp out society and the human race.

So, Kelton is right, in a way, though it’s not just MMT that provides a “job guarantee” for Austrian economists. It’s all of the bad ideas from resource allocation problem solvers; from the professional class of “economists” who argue on behalf of the state and the special interest groups who seek to steer it in their favor; from the socialists, Marxists, Keynesians, monetarists, mercantilists, totalitarians, and warmongers. And it’s not really a job guarantee but a duty to expand economic understanding because it inoculates the public from embracing or tolerating the very ideas that threaten human flourishing and survival.