Thursday 10 December 2015

Focus of Economics

What is the real purpose that economics has been trying to serve? What ultimately economists have been trying to articulate? And what has been the focus of economics and the economists since the birth of the discipline?

Though economics today studies a wide range of issues and topics, if we take an overall picture, its essence has been very simple-the betterment of human life on earth. Improving living conditions of the humanity at large has been the real and the ultimate goal of the discipline. In this process, the economists have been articulating  a number of theories and propositions as to how an economy may maximise its economic potential and worth. The first and the most famous work in this direction was by the Scottish philosopher-economist, Adam smith in The Wealth of Nations (1776). We trace the origin of the classical school to this work. Similarly, in the following years and centuries many masterpieces were produced by a great many economists who were trying to improvise better ways of maximizing the fruits of economic activities. Economics and the economists have common goals, searching for possible alternatives for the betterment of human life.

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