vincent p. norris wrote:

Do you have any idea of how easy that argument is to turn
around? "I understand economics, but you only think you
do." Not exactly overwhelming.


Well, for 34 years, I was paid to teach courses in economics. That
included judging whether others (my students) understood it.
Apparently someone thought I was qualified to do that.

What's your take on bobby's basic point: that
economics is a "subset" of psychology?

I maintain it's crap. Economics issues were
*considered* by some philosophers before the emergence
of economics as a distinct academic discipline, and
some of those philosophers may well have thought about
human psychology as well. However, Smith, Ricardo,
Say, Marshall and others clearly were not studying
psychology, and then spun off into economics.

When I studied economics as an undergraduate and in
graduate school, consumer preference was taken as a
given, and the notion of utility was being abandoned.
One of my professors in grad school at UCLA, Armen
Alchian, demonstrated decades ago that downward sloping
demand curves can be obtained without considering
"utility" at all; all that is required is a diminishing
marginal rate of substitution between two goods, which
is what we observe in the real world.

Economics is not a "subset" of psychology.


Are you?

bobby, the person to whom you are replying, has by his
own admission read ONE economics textbook in his life.
It was a lower division intro book at that. He is
not qualified to talk about economics, either the
subject as it is currently taught and studied today, or
the history of it.