Economists develop general statements on relationships between certain events, magnitudes, and changes of magnitudes, and on the basis of these general statements they offer explanations, predictions and prescriptions. As long as the discourse is quite abstract, confined to purely deductive inferences from the definitions, postulates, and their implications no one else care much about whether economists agree or disagree with one another. When they begin, however, to apply their theoretical system to concrete situations and arrive at conspicuously different explanations, glaringly different predictions, the audience cannot help wondering whether economist really know enough to be taken seriously.
Mark Thoma of the economist view has posted a very good discussion of Bryan Caplan' take on economists agreement.
