Reasons to Study Economics

     Saw this comment on an article in the Guardian called The Fight Against Climate Change is Down to Us: The 99%

I don't why people bother studying economics

The same reason that people in the Middle Ages studied theology:
- to eke one's way up the greasy pole
- to please one's masters by providing a justification for their abuses
- to forgive their sins and thus obtain their ear
- to obfuscate and cloud rational debate with pseudo-science, and so keep the masses ignorant
- to make sure you are the one dealing out righteous punishment (IMF etc.) and not the one receiving it (the poor)
- to have the power of screaming "heretic", knowing that the term could never be objectively justified
- to control all thought so that only the one thought, the absolute gospel truth of economics, is heard from every pulpit in the land, from every university chair and in every classroom
- to speak power to truth in exchange for crumbs from the tables of the masters of the universe.
What a dark age we live in. But the dawn breaks.

    Comparing economics to religion in the Dark Ages might seem a little radical but is probably not a bad idea.

Brian