Man and economics

Economics is the science of choice. It began with Aristotle but got mixed up with ethics in the Middle Ages. Adam Smith separated it from ethics, and Walras mathematized it. Alfred Marshall tried to narrow it, and Keynes made it fashionable. Robbins widened it, and Samuelson dynamized it, but modern science made it statistical and tried to confine it again.

But the science won't stay put. It keeps cropping up all over the place. There is an economics of money and trade, of pro duction and consumption, of distribution and development. There is also an economics of welfare, manners, language, in dustry, music, and art. There is an economics of war and an economics of power. There is even an economics of love.

Economics seems to apply to every nook and cranny of human experience. It is an aspect of all conscious action. Whenever decisions are made, the law of economy is called into play. Whenever alternatives exist, life takes on an economic aspect. It has always been so. But how can it be?

It can be because economics is more than just the most devel oped of the sciences of control. It is a way of looking at things, an ordering principle, a complete part of everything. It is a sys tem of thought, a life game, an element of pure knowledge. It is also useful in many ways, as the rest of this book tries to show.