Five “Good” Reasons to Hate Economics
We live in a world where hating something is trendy. Some hate Hawaiian Pizza, some others hate the rich, some hate immigrants, some people hate rap music, etc. Some people hate economics. What is economics about? I would refer to it as a social science that studies the economy from a well-defined perspective – that resources are scarce, that choices must be made in using them, that most of the time people use some thinking in making these choices, and that the market mechanism helps carry out this resource allocation. Thus, economics is first and foremost about the functioning of the market economy, and about the role of prices in allocating resources. If one wants to get an idea on what economists do study, he/she might look to the table of contents top-5 journals of the field, including the American Economic Review and Econometrica; the collection of Schools Brief in the Economist is also representative of the “hot topics” in today economics. One might be surprised by the methodological homogeneity of the field. Econ-haters will probably disagree with my definition, since when you really hate something, you sometimes end up by denying its existence. I agree, this can raise some logical problem (should I hate something that does not exist?), yet hate is about emotions, not about logical thinking. More
