What Should Economists Do?

Christopher Rodriguez

A01981238

December, 15

ECN 5330

What Should Economists Do?

In this journal James Buchannan proposes to examine what modern economics has become, how the thoughts of Adam Smith in his job wealth of nations have been ignored by the individuals now performing his job, and restricted within the domain of science. I believe the purpose of this is journal is to ask the following questions: What are economists doing and what should they do?

We first examine the obsession in the science of economics with equilibrium. This is guaranteed to be the most sophisticated fallacy in modern economics. The notion because certain relationships hold in equilibrium and these relationships are desirable. Economists today cannot make an impact or move the world with the solely use of mathematical lever, the reasons behind this is they do no account for no given information about resources availability, consumer preferences property rights, and technical frontiers. What most economists take today as given is only uncovered during the competitive process.

Buchanan considers that following Robin's path is to acknowledge the study of economics as one of applied maximization, where the utility function of the choosing agent is defined in advance and choice becomes purely mechanical.  According to Buchanan, the central idea of the discipline should be the cooperative association of individuals (behavior of exchange, trade or agreement).

The subject he refers as the duty of the economist is mainly, men's behavior in the market relationship, reflecting the propensity to truck and to barter, and the manifold variations. These are the proper subjects for the economist expressed by Buchannan. The message sent to society by previous economist or at least from Buchanan’s eyes was, economists should stop extending policy advice as they were the product of an evil planner; they should incorporate the political structure into account and have a theory of state implemented.

However, going through the journal, we can conclude with the idea that an economist is not simply an individual that do economics, but one that is a subject matter expert and focuses their attention on a particular form of human actions. It is foolish according to George Stigler the current use of methodology before the age of sixty-five. The scientific method and the finding of the optimal behaviors is hard to examine in the field of economics.

He first introduces us with a much neglected principle nowadays enunciated by Adam Smith. The “propensity to truck, barter, and exchange” has been overlooked and is not getting the respect deserved or actually what economics and political economy is all about.  Society’s elementary approach that economics is the main theory of resource allocation and is the center of the modern world does not hold economic reality. The economy

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