From scepticism to conspiracy: the trap of the official narrative

When suspicion becomes dogma: the economic conspiracy theorist's loop

The thin line between scepticism and paranoia in economic debates

In a recent economic discussion, someone fired off a string of claims that flipped the 'conspiracy theorist' label: the real fool, they argued, is the one who believes the official versions of the pandemic, vaccines, technology and education. The rhetorical strategy is a familiar one: shift the stigma onto your interlocutor. But where does economic analysis stand amid this loop of total distrust?

Politics, vaccines and surveillance: an explosive cocktail

Criticism of the political class is a classic. Corruption and property-development scams are rightly denounced. However, when the argument jumps to the theory that mRNA vaccines were designed to reduce the population, the ground becomes swampy. There is no data to back up that claim, and the mainstream scientific community rejects it. The same goes for public education: accusing it of systematic indoctrination without concrete evidence borders on conspiracy theory.

Digital surveillance: paranoia or reality?

Here the debate is more nuanced. It is a fact that big tech companies collect massive amounts of data, and that states can access it under certain conditions. The Cambridge Analytica scandal showed that personalisation goes beyond advertising. But claiming that the state knows what you think before you decide is an extrapolation. The consensus among cybersecurity experts is that, while surveillance is real, its predictive capacity is limited.

The baffling detail

Curiously, in this whole barrage of accusations there are hardly any figures. None of the participants provides concrete data on corruption, vaccine efficacy or the costs of surveillance. The absence of numbers is what separates well-founded criticism from conspiracy. Without data, suspicion becomes a dogma just as rigid as the one being criticised.