You criticize the social sciences ... because economics is "just about justifying existing power structures". That seems a bit ... well, wrong. Or at least the assumption that social sciences is any different from the worst you ascribe to economics here. NONE of the social sciences, not even English studies, claim to be value free (that would be mighty inconvenient for them. Of course Hamlet only makes sense within the value system of England of that time ... studying it outside of that context just won't work. Likewise criminality happens within a context. Very few bank and ATM robberies in the Soviet Union, everything social happens within a specific context, directed by values).

But ... the social sciences. They're ALL explicitly about something in between studying and justifying existing power structures ... No exceptions. Studying (and justifying) existing society is what the humanities are about. It's the definition.

By contrast economics has a branch that is entirely value free (game theory, imho the hardest part), and most of economics likes to pretend it is value free (and whilst they're not 100% right at that, they're ... let's say 75% right), and only a small part is justifying existing power structures.

Social sciences tell the government what to do like priests do : based on what "it should be" according to how we see society. Economists are more humble, and merely try to say "your choices are A, B, C. These will lead to X, Y, Z". And yes, social scientists resent that the real world should be allowed to influence their perfect world, but ... only the truly insane would follow through.

Note that at no point did I say that makes social sciences worthless.

> The 2008 crash called for a massive reassessment of the political and cultural status of economics

No it did not. You act as if people listened to economists before that. In fact, I would argue the opposite is true: economists triggered (out of self-interest, because they were working at banks) the crisis BECAUSE people went too far of the reasonable path with loans.

That's the big problem that never seems to get through. There are many causes of the crisis, of course. However the actual cause is people ... bought and built houses they could never afford (in other words they used up more resources than they could ever hope to contribute to society). That's the cause of the crisis. The banks attitude and corruption and lying ... actually let those people enjoy their ill-gotten gains for a lot longer than would otherwise have been possible (lying on loans then buying ... ill-gotten is a fair description). Not indefinitely. And of course they're the easy target.

The crisis was far preferable to the alternative : that people would just sit on those resources preventing society from working.

But yeah ... "WEI ! They took my stuff ! And look, they're corrupt !". Well, yes, they're corrupt. That's bad, but sorry to say, it's not the problem.

And yet, funnily enough yesterday morning in the newspaper one particular French, poor family came into an article. They were so poor, it was judged by social workers, that they needed to be given a house (that's one thing France does). A large house that they had "helped design and locate".

Which poor family you ask ? The new cabinet minister. The woman makes 8900 euros per month, just from her main job (she has 4, though granted, they likely pay less), and the husband (who does not have published pay), I must say, likely makes more.

Social workers' judgement ? These people needed to be given a free, 3 bedroom home in a Paris suburb.