Economics isn't just the current economic system.
Economics has been described as the study of incentives, and how to manage scarce resources. People usually think of economics as directly relating to money, but money is not necessary for economics to exist. You could have a study of economics in situations that only include barter between physical objects or immediate services, or even the "clans or tribes of close-knit individuals living together".
Scarcity is the default in the world, so even among your kin you must choose how to manage scarce resources. You spend resources deciding how much effort to spend on supporting each of your kin, you have to decide how much risk to take in supporting your kin if they get into trouble, you have to decide who gets what accommodations or food. Taking one opportunity means another is no longer available, so which opportunities do you take and why? If someone is being imperfect, at what point is it time to start imparting disincentives and what magnitude of those disincentives should be? If you happen to have certain kin who are particularly strong, or smart, or talented, or attractive, how will you make use of them? They can only be in one place at one time. If you have certain people who are wise, how will their time be parceled out, since they can only be in one place at one time?
The questions don't go away because money goes away, or because modern systems of trade go away. They are fundamental questions that will decide whether a clan or tribe is successful or unsuccessful. Understanding these things is important whether we like it or not.
That doesn't mean we can't criticise anything coming out of economics, any particular conclusions or the specific systems our society has set up. It just means that we can't place the blame of our faulty systems entirely on the shoulders of economics, any more than we can blame chemistry for war because bombs and guns use chemical explosives, or we can blame language for hate because people use language to express their hateful ideas.
Economics has been described as the study of incentives, and how to manage scarce resources. People usually think of economics as directly relating to money, but money is not necessary for economics to exist. You could have a study of economics in situations that only include barter between physical objects or immediate services, or even the "clans or tribes of close-knit individuals living together".
Scarcity is the default in the world, so even among your kin you must choose how to manage scarce resources. You spend resources deciding how much effort to spend on supporting each of your kin, you have to decide how much risk to take in supporting your kin if they get into trouble, you have to decide who gets what accommodations or food. Taking one opportunity means another is no longer available, so which opportunities do you take and why? If someone is being imperfect, at what point is it time to start imparting disincentives and what magnitude of those disincentives should be? If you happen to have certain kin who are particularly strong, or smart, or talented, or attractive, how will you make use of them? They can only be in one place at one time. If you have certain people who are wise, how will their time be parceled out, since they can only be in one place at one time?
The questions don't go away because money goes away, or because modern systems of trade go away. They are fundamental questions that will decide whether a clan or tribe is successful or unsuccessful. Understanding these things is important whether we like it or not.
That doesn't mean we can't criticise anything coming out of economics, any particular conclusions or the specific systems our society has set up. It just means that we can't place the blame of our faulty systems entirely on the shoulders of economics, any more than we can blame chemistry for war because bombs and guns use chemical explosives, or we can blame language for hate because people use language to express their hateful ideas.
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