Economy means many things and everyone has their own staff Concept of what the economy is. It follows that the term “economist” corresponds to a diverse typology of subjects that differ greatly from one another. For years I have wondered how it is possible that most people confuse an economist with, for example, an accountant, a stock speculator, or a journalist writing about economics without having studied it.
The reality is that great economists are much more alike Immanuel Kant oa Karl Popper and not the mutual fund manager or economist who makes a career out of publications divisive on useless subjects but supported by powerful mathematical systems.
Then comes the final interview by Antonio Martino, who puts things in order and reminds us of the formula that explains everything: “I went to Chicago with the never-realized idea of going to Harvard the following year.” [….] I meet a Sardinian who teaches comparative Italian literature and tells me about one of his students who could teach me English. “Fantastic,” I think. A week goes by, nothing. So I ask the Sardinian for news. Ashamed, he replies that when the girl found out that I was studying economics, she said: “Forget it.” And why at all? Because he confused economics with business. “Students who want to be managers are extremely competitive, while economists are philosophers who do nothing and are harmless.” – Nicola Porro, The godfather is liberal (Piemme-2022).
Read the latest episodes:
The difference between socialism and capitalism? a matter of taste
Because the ills of Africa are not the fault of colonialism
Friedrich August von Hayek was probably the most awarded Nobel Prize for economics of all time, but his work is also great in the field of methodology, in the philosophy of politics, in the history of ideas and also from a purely literary point of view.
In his impressive book The Great Classics of Economics (Bompiani – 1998) Sergio Ricossa reminds us: “Adam Smith was a philosopher who also studied economics. Today’s economist is often a hyper-specialist who lacks an overall vision and who, on the other hand, knows everything there is to know about a particular subject, be it money or international trade, economics or labor. There are business economists, agricultural economists, econometricians and so on. While the heuristic usefulness of fragmenting the whole to concentrate research on a part is questionable (a practice now practiced in all sciences, including applied sciences such as medicine), the phenomenon persists and continues to trend tended to displace the old classification of economists into “schools”.
For example, econometrics, the stock market, big business, or real estate speculation are all very well (despite being part of the big “family” of economics): but the economist expands the field of his research there much further, and things inevitably get more complicated.
And finally, complexity is at home, because “economists are philosophers”. Some.
Fabrizio Bonali, May 26, 2023