<p>Yes, economics is really the systematic study of human action (I think that was Mises definition). Or another definition is “the study of scarce resources which have alternative uses.” Looking back at The Wealth of Nations, it is clear that econ is largely about incentives and decisions, with money being something which emerges from that.</p>
<p>This is why so many people are blown away by things like Freakanomics (or better but not as popular books like “Why Does Popcorn Cost So Much at the Movies” or “Armchair Economist”). It is their first introduction to “thinking like an economist.” My thinking and reasoning skills tripled after I studied econ. And it wasn’t from learning about the Euro.</p>
<p>Econ is a bit like comp. sci. in that regard, most people are only aware of particular applications of it, unaware that it is a largely theoretical discipline, more related to math than simply learning how to program. CS might be the second-most misunderstood major.</p>
<p>@Ruby: I’m not going to argue with what you said, but I am going to tell you that you are basically contradicting yourself. Economics, by accurate definition, is the study of how humans efficiently make use of scarce resources. So, long before money was introduced as a medium of exchange (in the days of the barter system), your argument would be a lot stronger than it is now; however, seeing as how money (and other financial instruments) basically controls the allocation of scarce resources, economics is, in large part, about money</p>
<p>Except historians are often wrong at interpreting history. The Great Depression for example, was basically the result of bad Federal Reserve policy, but in history class all they want to talk about is the stock market crash (merely a symptom of the overproduction caused by Fed policy).</p>
<p>Definitely philosophy. You can’t imagine how many people think that philosophy majors spend their time smoking weed and sitting under trees pondering new-age metaphysical nonsense. Sure, some probably do, but if they’re worth their salt they at least have some compelling rational arguments for what they spout.</p>
<p>Because historians don’t just want to talk about the stock market crash of 1929 when analyzing the great depression. You know there are economic historians, right? Not to mention the idea that the depression was “basically a result of bad federal reserve policy” is exactly the sort of reductive oversimplification that good historians avoid.</p>
<p>Of course, the fact that you don’t understand what historians do isn’t surprising, as most people seem to think it essentially involves memorizing a litany of names and dates.</p>
<p>I never said anything remotely like that in sincerity, if I ever said anything like that it was a joke.</p>
<p>Milton Friedman won the Nobel Prize partly for demonstrating (along with Anna Schwartz) in “A Monetary History of the United States 1867-1960” how Federal Reserve policy was responsible for the Great Depression. Ben Bernanke, current head of the Fed and not a Friedmanite, nevertheless agreed with Friedman’s assessment.</p>
<p>But this insight doesn’t seem to have trickled into any of the history textbooks that I’ve checked.</p>
<p>But please explain your point. You’ve made the accusation, implicitly or explicitly, so make your case.</p>
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