The study of economics did not originally have to do with
markets - the word originates as Greek "oikonomos" (household
knowledge) which referred to the sound management of an estate and the
allocation of human effort that was required for the members of the household
to produce the necessities they required, preferably before devoting time to
conveniences and luxuries. Economics
had nothing to do with the world outside of the household, except in rare
instances in which a household produced more than was necessary and could
barter with other households for their own excess.
The principles of a well-managed house was scaled up to the
management of towns, cities, nations, and nowadays even the world. It has been stretched well beyond what it
was intended to manage, and stretched to a scale at which management may not be
at all practicable. Thus considered, if
economics seems unfathomable, it is only because it has overstepped the bounds
of its original intent.
The needs of a household and the means to achieve them are
quite straightforward, such that even uneducated peasants can manage to figure
out how to get by on what they have and to improve their lot over time. But when men who consider themselves to be
smart and sophisticated engage in the foolish behavior of presuming to speak on
a grand scale about the needs and means of every household in a nation or in
the entire world, complications invariably arise.
Economics is a simple concept that is only made complex by
struggling vainly to amalgamate that which should likely not be amalgamated,
and complexities and paradoxes arise when such broad and sweeping statements
are attempted. It has, in other words, overstepped
its bounds and become entirely insular and divorced from reality. The academic economist is a man who has
bitten off far more than he can chew and is too arrogant to spit it back out
and deal with it in smaller bites.
This is not to say that there is no use for the principles
of running a household, or even a production facility – merely that when the
efficiency of production and trade has swelled to overshadow the meaning of
those activities, economics has been misapplied and is quite likely more
damaging than beneficial.
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