Definitions and Basics

Economics is the study of given ends and scarce means. Lionel Robbins, biography, from the Concise
Encyclopedia of Economics

Robbins' most famous book was An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science, one of
the best-written prose pieces in economics. That book contains three main thoughts. First is Robbins'
famous all-encompassing definition of economics that is still used to define the subject today:
"Economics is the science which studies human behavior as a relationship between given ends and
scarce means which have alternative uses."...

What is "political economy"? Chapter I, Principles of Economics, by Alfred Marshall.

Political Economy or Economics is a study of mankind in the ordinary business of life; it examines that
part of individual and social action which is most closely connected with the attainment and with the use
of the material requisites of wellbeing.

Thus it is on the one side a study of wealth; and on the other, and more important side, a part of the
study of man. For man's character has been moulded by his every-day work, and the material resources
which he thereby procures, more than by any other influence unless it be that of his religious ideals; and
the two great forming agencies of the world's history have been the religious and the economic. Here
and there the ardour of the military or the artistic spirit has been for a while predominant: but religious
and economic influences have nowhere been displaced from the front rank even for a time; and they
have nearly always been more important than all others put together. Religious motives are more
intense than economic, but their direct action seldom extends over so large a part of life. For the
business by which a person earns his livelihood generally fills his thoughts during by far the greater part
of those hours in which his mind is at its best; during them his character is being formed by the way in
which he uses his faculties in his work, by the thoughts and the feelings which it suggests, and by his
relations to his associates in work, his employers or his employees.

Isn't economics nicknamed the "dismal science" because it is all about running out of resources and the
inevitable decline of life as we know it? Who coined the phrase "the dismal science"? The Secret History
of the Dismal Science: Economics, Religion, and Race in the 19th Century, by David M. Levy and Sandra J.
Peart. Econlib, January 22, 2001.

Everyone knows that economics is the dismal science. And almost everyone knows that it was given this
description by Thomas Carlyle, who was inspired to coin the phrase by T. R. Malthus's gloomy prediction
that population would always grow faster than food, dooming mankind to unending poverty and
hardship.

While this story is well-known, it is also wrong, so wrong that it is hard to imagine a story that is farther
from the truth. At the most trivial level, Carlyle's target was not Malthus, but economists such as John
Stuart Mill, who argued that it was institutions, not race, that explained why some nations were rich and
others poor....
Economics on One Foot, a LearnLiberty video.

Prof. Art Carden, in memory of Ayn Rand's philosophy on one foot, presents economics on one foot.

In the News and Examples

Diane Coyle on the Soulful Science, EconTalk podcast.

Diane Coyle talks with host Russ Roberts about the ideas in her new book, The Soulful Science: What
Economists Really Do and Why it Matters. The discussions starts with the issue of growth--measurement
issues and what economists have learned and have yet to learn about why some nations grow faster
than others and some don't grow at all. Subsequent topics include happiness research, the politics and
economics of inequality, the role of math in economics, and policy areas where economics has made the
greatest contribution....

Isn't economics all about supply and demand? Richard McKenzie on Prices, EconTalk podcast. June 23,
2008.

Richard McKenzie of the University California, Irvine and the author of Why Popcorn Costs So Much at
the Movies and Other Pricing Puzzles, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about a wide range of
pricing puzzles. They discuss why Southern California experiences frequent water crises, why price falls
after Christmas, why popcorn seems so expensive at the movies, and the economics of price
discrimination....

Isn't economics all about Adam Smith and the invisible hand? Adam Smith: The Invisible Hand, a
LearnLiberty video.

Prof. James Otteson, using the ideas of Adam Smith, explains how the division of labor is a necessary
and crucial element of wealthy nations.

Don't all economists disagree? Henderson on Disagreeable Economists. EconTalk podcast, July 30, 2007.

David Henderson, editor of the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics and a research fellow at Stanford's
Hoover Institution, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about when and why economists disagree.
Harry Truman longed for a one-armed economist, one willing to go out on a limb and take an
unequivocal position without adding "on the other hand...". Truman's view is often reflected in the
public's view that economic knowledge is inherently ambiguous and that economists never agree on
anything. Henderson claims that this view is wrong--that there is substantial agreement among
economists on many scientific questions--while Roberts wonders whether this consensus is getting a bit
frayed around the edges. The conversation highlights the challenges the everyday person faces in trying
to know when and what to believe when economists take policy positions based on research. Is it biased
or science?

Humorous essay. 0-sum games like income redistribution are more exciting than economic
fundamentals like the gains from trade. Why is Economics So Boring?, by Donald Cox. Econlib,
November 7, 2005.
Stan: Ollie, you know the worst part about being an economist? You meet someone at a cocktail party,
you tell them you teach economics.

Ollie: ...and they say "Oh, yeah, I took that in college. I hated it. It was sooo boring!"...

... getting the credit for Equation 14 is a zero sum game. And we care about zero sum games. There's
drama. There's tension. There's a loser for every winner. It makes for good TV, doesn't it? But it's not
very common in reality. What common in reality is both sides are better off. The buyer and the seller of
the car in the ad. That's reality. No violence, no theft. Boring balloons. Boring happy people. Economics
is boring....

Is economics just a fuss about language? The Economy: Metaphors We (Shouldn't) Live By, by Max
Borders.

"Argument is war." That's what cognitive linguists George Lakoff and Mark Johnson write in the opening
chapter of their influential 1980 Metaphors We Live By. In that seminal book, Lakoff and Johnson offer a
number of powerful lessons about figurative language: Metaphor is more than mere literary window
dressing; metaphor is a fundamental aspect of human thought and language; and metaphors help us
navigate the real world with a degree of efficiency that literal language can't offer. It can even--for
better or worse--change our perceptions of things....