>Economics as a discipline describes an idealized fictional human-like colony on Mars, locked in a greenhouse. It doesn't even attempt to describe humans living

>Economics as a discipline describes an idealized fictional human-like colony on Mars, locked in a greenhouse. It doesn't even attempt to describe humans living on Earth, so be careful how you interpret it. I'm an economist, and this is not remotely true. It's not even true for economic theory (international trade, environmental economics). Here are some economic articles about humans on earth: Case and Deaton's Deaths of Despair paper: https://mronline.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/15078.full_.pdf https://mronline.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/15078.full_.... Duflo and Banerjee, Poor Economics Easterly, The White Man's Burden Autor et al's China Syndrome on the effect of trade with China: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w18054/w18054.pdf https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w18054/w180... and their subsequent papers on its effect on social outcomes (marriage, divorce, drug overdoses) and political extremism. The idea that economists don't study real estate markets is also absolutely false. Google scholar "real estate economics" gives about 2.5 million results. There's the Journal of Urban Economics. There's Glaeser's book Triumph of the City. Et cetera.