In this three-part series Michael Blastland lays out the history of economic ideas to understand why economics goes wrong and whether it can ever go entirely right.

In the second programme, 'Cogs', Michael travels to Chicago to explore another view of economics: that it is a science, explaining the irrefutable mechanism of the market.

But has economics, with its language of 'laws', 'models' and 'forces', deceived itself and others by creating a false impression of precision? Why, despite decades of mechanical economics, do answers to some of biggest economic questions still elude us?

In the next programme, 'Monsters', Michael asks whether the problem is not the machine, but the people within it. In recent years economics has looked increasingly to the human factor, to experimental studies of behaviour, and to psychology. And that's where we turn next week.

Producer: Richard Knight. Show less