Lionel Robbins believed laypeople could never grasp economics.

Evidence

“The hope that Economics will ever become something which the layman can comprehend without training,” he asserted in 1930, “is doomed for ever to frustration.” — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 41

Categorization

• SEED: Angle for an essay: the recurring tension between economists’ technical expertise and democratic persuasion, and how the MPS eventually tried to bridge it via public advocacy.