r/TrueReddit • u/Maxwellsdemon17 • 6d ago

Business + Economics Economics teaching has become the Aeroflot of ideas. The discipline is failing students by ignoring the biggest social, political and ecological challenges facing the world today

https://www.ft.com/content/9aabb4a9-d896-4b4c-a40a-1c4477a47a29
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u/TheShipEliza 6d ago

hi. econn grad here. contemporary academic econ does some good work. there are teachers/scholars who are using the discipline to explain what is going on. but a HUGE part of the academy is dedicated, more or less, to magical thinking about capitalism. and their sole devotion is effectively creating a secular framework for a kind of recursive prosperity gospel where, if you have the money you understand the system and the system works. and if you don't have the money it is because you don't understand the system and cannot make it work.

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u/snooze_sensei 6d ago

I've had this argument with a Co worker of mine who writes curriculum for Economics.

He argues that Economics is a science and has scientific laws that are universal. I argue that Economics is a social construct, and that the laws of economics are simply the agreed upon rules of the game. At best a social science.

He says I'm crazy.

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u/LucyRiversinker 5d ago

The many laws of economics often start with ceteris paribus as an axiom. Good luck applying ceteris paribus in the real world. Economics provides a useful array of tools to think about the word, but humanity is not entirely homo oeconomicus. The assumption of rational thinking is inherently flawed.