There is a very good book by a very good economist called Economics: The User’s Guide. In under 500 pages, Ha Joon Chang explains the past, present and future of economics – and makes it a joy to read. One of the best parts of the book is a table, summarising nine different ‘schools’ of economic thought.
As the (abridged) version below shows, economists can have very different opinions about what drives economies, and what the ideal role of a government should be. They show that what looks like good tax and spending policy to one sort of economist might look like terrible overreach to another. Crucially, economists from these different schools of thought can also have very different ideas about what drives economic change.