I hope that 'right', in this context, means that it leads to observationally verifiable predictions of significant real-world events, and not, say, 'makes the math tractable', or 'produces results that conform to the existing tenets of economic theory'.

I would be less skeptical if there were not apparently at least two schools of economists, producing diametrically opposed analyses and recommendations for any situation.

> would be less skeptical if there were not apparently at least two schools of economists, producing diametrically opposed analyses and recommendations for any situation.

What you perceive is large part politics, not academic economics.

The biggest problem I run into with this is that I believe the bounds of rationality for different individuals had far more variability than is accounted for. I suppose it's still useful to look at for a perspective on some things though

Economic models usually look at average behaviour for large groups. There are cases where the model breaks, but jumping into "oh, it was all bs then" is just populism.

I know nothing of modern economics, but couldn't you just model the rationality of individual as a random variable like everything else?

There was a serious attempt to push an equivalent of rational choice in political science a while ago. Public choice theory holds that bureaucrats and politicians are rational actors maximising their own power. It's no longer very prominent because it turns out to be a poor fit for actual motivations - which seem to be a complex mix of office politics, power seeking, public service motivation, and following the wishes of their superiors. The model was simply too reductive to be useful.

I'm not an economist, but it would surprise me if a whole society's motivations were not at least as complex as those of a government department.