Economics. It is exactly what the title describes it to be. Fellow students, who abhor this subject, may disagree with me for a few reasons. For one, this whole subject is filled with curves and figure and more than half of the content in essays are left to describing the graphs. Personally, I had grievances once i discovered that mathematics was infused into the explanation of economics. I detest it. Why can't we leave words to give us the logical flow in the discussions. Yet, we must remember that mathematics is merely a tool. As much as mathematics does not fully explain physics, the same applies to economics. Mathematics is an imperative as it is universally recognised as concrete truth since no one can fight with statistics. Anyways, if economics was a whole lot of mathematical jargon, it would indeed become a dismal science.
Ceteris paribus- leaving everything else constant. Assumptions renders this subject inapplicable to reality or so critics claim. I could and i did write a full essay on this (not trying to sound big ;)) but I shan't copy and paste it here haha. But Alfred Marshall did explain along these lines that assumptions are precisely what makes economics worthwhile studying. Assumption may break down reality to be so unreal but it helps in identifying variables that influence reality. Economics is an instrument in acquiring the knowledge of how society works. For instance, we know demand and supply. We make use of this economic tool to discern which variables affect the demand and supply and ultimately, the quantity transacted and price of the good. It is not the full knowledge of how society works. Alright, enough of all these rebuttals, let's look at the plus points of economics.
Economics is beautiful. It goes beyond understanding the allocation of resources to feed the unlimited wants of society (the definition of economics). After reading the end of poverty, i received a glimpse of how the understanding of economics of society can give one the ability to have a bigger impact on the lower statras of society. For example, you can be a volunteer and go to Ethiopia to build homes for those in need. But if you don't understand the mechanism of the society, your efforts may just go to waste. The Africans may live in the home but may not know how to maintain it etc. So how does economics understand the society when it is simply based on the economy alone? That question in itself is wrong as economics draws in all factors that affect the living of mankind- whether it be cultural, geographical, technological, all these play a part in moving the economy. Economics covers so so many topics and it interlinks them to have people become aware of their influences on Man's material needs. In knowing economics, we know that the certain efforts like building that home is short-term. Hence, work needs to be set aside towards teaching the people how to build the homes. (This example does not fully illustrate economics in action though) This may be confused with human geography but human geography is essentially grafted into economics like all other subjects since they influence the economy.
I shall end this post on economics. But this does not end the numerous ways in which economics is beneficial to mankind.
