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Is #economics a #science? Not as it is colloquially defined ("uses The Scientific Method"), and the same is true for all social sciences. Proper economics is best understood as a way of thinking, an understanding for the fundamental logic of social phenomena. Its job is not, as
natural sciences are designed, to predict and support engineering, but to uncover the true processes and mechanisms behind the phenomena we see and think (often mistakenly) we understand. This is what economics has done since the very beginning, and why it was both the queen of
the social sciences and the 'dismal' science. It was the 'queen' because of its power in explaining social and economic processes and mechanisms as emergent from individual behavior: the (inter)actions of persons. For example, economics explains the significance of market prices
as both resulting from and guiding decisions by economic actors, and thereby causing resource allocations that better satisfy consumer wants: that is, higher standards of living. Economics was denoted the 'dismal' science because it did not in its theories treat individuals
differently because of race. People are people, and they act as people regardless of their skin color. Economic theory in this sense assumes fundamental equality in terms of our economic actions, and the same goes for the market. It is by recognizing that theatlantic.com/business/archi…
individuals have self-interest and that the pursuit of what one subjectively values does harm anybody else, especially in a market setting, that economics is so powerful. But it is also why economics, and the economic way of thinking, would appear 'dismal' to those who wish to
force society into a different mold. Political promises are often disproved by sound economic thinking for the simple reason that politics disregards people as people and assumes they can, through the stroke of a pen, create some form of ideal society to which the nature of man
can then be adjusted. This places the cart before the horse, but instead of recognizing this and recognizing the truth of sound economic reasoning, these economically illiterate political dreamers blame economics for the ills caused by policy fundamentally at odds with human
nature. But despite their claims, economics is not political and certainly not ideological. It is a logic about people and their actions, which uncovers the true nature of social processes. Only by accepting these truths can politics be successful. The historic track record of
attempting the impossible, to politically reshape society in direct violation of economic 'law' (the truths about human behavior and the processes and mechanisms that emerge from the principles of action), should be clear enough: the enormous death and suffering it has caused
should be enough to make economic literacy core to any curriculum and to adopt skepticism as the proper approach to political claims. Instead, we are doing the opposite: education does little to bring economic literacy, and many subjects instead preach quite the opposite. This is
a sad state of affairs, and will only cause more suffering as the powers of the State are called upon to create a society that is built on wishful thinking because it requires that people are not people. When people don't fit the mold, we should discard the mold not human nature.
