The Harmonizing Variable: A Ship (or: How Economists Smuggle Politics (dishonesty) into the Equation)

Picture a lone vessel——anchored in calm waters, holding position while every other current shifts around it. Now imagine a fleet of dishonest, politically engineered tides, disguised as variables, pushing and pulling against that still point.

You call it a coefficient—a neutral multiplier. But beneath the surface, it’s a keel weighted by ideology, a number designed to tilt the ship toward one safe harbor or another.

Hold all else constant, and the equation seems stable. Yet even constants drift when the currents are written by those who fear open seas.