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I always thought Economics as a discipline is iffy. On the first day of my Economics 101 class I was introduced to "economic man" or to make it more academic "H

I always thought Economics as a discipline is iffy. On the first day of my Economics 101 class I was introduced to "economic man" or to make it more academic "Homo economicus." According to my professor this is a, "hypothetical person who behaves in exact accordance with their rational self-interest." Not only was he hypothetical but this is how we all behave whether we knew it or not. According to him I had this strange power to make 100% rational decisions. And I didn't even know it. I have never gotten passed that economic principle. And that economist uses it as its fundamental truth. WOW, talk about building on sandy soil. And upon that rationalize it as truth with math. The truth is that like any social science, ideas and behaviors change depending on how the person feels at that moment. There are no fundamental laws that can be found other than those that are needed to stay alive and even they vary depending on the individual's mental state at the time. Economists would do their profession a favor if they treated it as the social science that it is rather that the hard science they profess. A perfect example of advancement in the field is the Nobel Prize given to Daniel Kahneman in 2002 for his and Amos Tversky work on cognitive basis. Their field is psychology, yet they got their prize in economics. No where do you see math as the tool they used to get to their discoveries. Yes, they might have used statistics to refine their ideas but not to find the fundamentals. Yes, you might say that they call their field behavioral economics but the reality is that human behavior is what economists study and as such they should treated it as the soft science it is.

laaph 9y ago
> On the first day of my Economics 101 class I was introduced to "economic man" or to make it more academic "Homo economicus." Of all criticisms you could make, this is pretty iffy. Did you complain in your physics class when they said "calculate speed of an object and assume no air resistance"? Or when they tell you to "consider it as a point mass"? Here they are making the assumptions they work with apparent. You can't define exactly how people are, so we need to make some assumptions. That lets us clarify where and when these things might work or not work, and possibly look for explanations when our results are completely wrong. Imagine if they were to teach the same material, without the disclaimer "this only works if you make the assumption of homo economicus". Any science works with models, and we need to define those models to be able to determine if they are useful or not. "The best material model of a cat is another, or preferably the same, cat." --Norbert Wiener

laaph 9y ago

> On the first day of my Economics 101 class I was introduced to "economic man" or to make it more academic "Homo economicus." Of all criticisms you could make, this is pretty iffy. Did you complain in your physics class when they said "calculate speed of an object and assume no air resistance"? Or when they tell you to "consider it as a point mass"? Here they are making the assumptions they work with apparent. You can't define exactly how people are, so we need to make some assumptions. That lets us clarify where and when these things might work or not work, and possibly look for explanations when our results are completely wrong. Imagine if they were to teach the same material, without the disclaimer "this only works if you make the assumption of homo economicus". Any science works with models, and we need to define those models to be able to determine if they are useful or not. "The best material model of a cat is another, or preferably the same, cat." --Norbert Wiener