Every now and then I recall that I'm supposed to be a scholar. You can blame it all on my early exposure to science fiction; and to John W. Campbell's unfailing devotion to reason and science as ways to solve all human problems.
Science fiction stories are by definition fiction. A truism, of course; but consider what it means. We can, in science fiction, postulate a faster-than-light drive, or anti-gravity, or collapsed metal. We can postulate new sources of cheap energy. We then work out what the world might be like if we had those things.
We can do that in the social sciences. During the Golden Age there were a lot of whacking good stories based on the notion of rational social sciences: and in nearly every one of them there was a scientific penology. Rehabilitation worked; and of course it was better to rehabilitate than punish.
You just read such a story, and you'll read many others, and that's fine—so long as you remember that they're stories. Because there are places where they truly believe they have a science of history: and thus it's a good idea to put dissidents into madhouses. Rebels must be crazy. Sakharov is perhaps the best known of those; but there are thousands of others in the Soviet Union.
After all, it's logical, isn't it? If you assume that Marxism-Leninism is a true science of history, then to rebel against the rule of Marxist-Leninist social engineers is irrational; and you don't want to be irrational. Best cure you of your delusions. Orwell saw it coming. By the end of 1984 Winston loved Big Brother. . . .
Herewith two essays on social science. They were originally columns in Analog Science Fiction; and although they were written some time ago, I see no need to revise either. One predicts drastic consequences of our neglect of the space program; predictions that came true well before the Challenger disaster made it clear to everyone that something was fundamentally wrong. I fear it still isn't clear enough. The long-term consequences of our failure to invest in the future may return to make our children curse our memory.
These essays are polemical; but I do mean what I say. I may have overstated the case against the so-called social sciences, but not by much.
Both essays are mostly concerned with economics, simply because economics is supposed to be the most advanced of the social sciences. We have, by law, a Council of Economic Advisors, and they give Nobel Prizes in economics. God help us.