Dani Rodrik’s Economics Rules stands as a tactful, evenhanded assessment of the terms and parameters characterizing the conduct of economics, the insights gained from operating within those bounds and the costs borne from straying outside of them. In defense of the discipline’s perception as a “reductionist approach to social phenomena” pursuing “universal claims,” Prof. Rodrik places the pluralism of context-specific models at center stage. At its core, Economics Rules argues that knowledge in the field “advances horizontally” through the multiplicative diversity of models to explain circumstantial outcomes. But, from a normative perspective, is that a good thing?