Economics was originally called Political Economy, and it still is, they just hide the fact that economics is inherently political. Economics is not a science, it’s just politics with charts. It’s not a class in school, it’s class warfare, waged from elite schools upon the poor.

If we define economics as the study of how we divide up resources, this has always been political, ever since Ug killed some bushmeat and wanted to give the liver to his girlfriend. And the fact is that economics has never been some isolated study of theoretical laws, it’s been the writing of laws by people in power.

Economists are the only ‘scientists’ that politicians actually listen to, which is A) terrifying and B) tells you something. Politicians used to hide behind priests, but now they hide behind economists. It used to be dudes in bedsheets waving incense, now it’s dudes with spreadsheets talking about income. Same shit different day, just a different set of reasons you don’t understand, explaining why the ruling class gets to take your stuff.

Just like Ug dividing up delicacies, economics is and always will be about power. The fact that we think of it as apolitical doesn’t make it so. It just means the ruling class has won. Economists today are able to dig around the entrails of the economy without ever getting their hands dirty. They can impoverish entire nations and it’s just like, ‘oops, I did it again’. And then they go do it again. It’s obviously not a science. Science can’t go on for so long, getting basic assumptions wrong. Economics is a naked exercise of power, barely covered in a spreadsheet.

Leo Tolstoy's critique of Political Economy in 1900 applies just as much today. It is, indeed, part of the eternal bullshit going back to Ug. Tolstoy said:

“When people behave badly they always invent a philosophy of life which represents their bad actions to be not bad actions at all, but merely results of unalterable laws beyond their control… these new explanations came in the form of science: political economy.”

Though the name has changed, the game is the same. Move the money from the people's pocket to the ruling class’s pocket, while saying this is just the way of the world. The reason could be GDP or God. It’s still the same outcome. While today we see the excuse of ‘god said so’ to be absurd, we somehow consider the same thing OK because GDP requires it. But I’m telling you to look, because we’re all getting fleeced.

So let’s look closely at the temple priests of Capitalism, the economists.

Who Economists Are