Curriculum Philosophy of Economics

Philosophy of Economics

The big ideas and thinkers behind economics itself - what the field assumes, argues about, and still can't agree on.

What Is Economics, Really? (Positive vs Normative) Why economics splits into describing how the world works and arguing how it should work. 📄 Read-aloud
Adam Smith and the Invisible Hand How Adam Smith argued that individuals pursuing their own interest can unintentionally benefit society. 📄 Read-aloud
Karl Marx and the Critique of Capitalism Marx's argument that capitalism systematically benefits owners of capital at workers' expense. 📄 Read-aloud
The Austrian School: Hayek and Spontaneous Order Hayek's argument that markets coordinate scattered knowledge better than any central planner can. 📄 Read-aloud
Keynes vs the Classical Economists Why Keynes argued markets don't always self-correct quickly, and government may need to step in. 📄 Read-aloud
Rational Choice Theory and Its Critics Economics traditionally assumes people act rationally, but behavioral research complicates that picture. 📄 Read-aloud
Utilitarianism and Economic Policy How the idea of maximizing overall well-being has shaped, and complicated, economic policymaking. 📄 Read-aloud
The Social Contract and Public Goods Why some goods can't be left to private markets alone, and how the social contract idea explains why. 📄 Read-aloud
Milton Friedman and Free-Market Philosophy Friedman's case for limiting government's economic role in favor of free markets and individual choice. 📄 Read-aloud
Amartya Sen and the Capability Approach Sen's argument that well-being should be measured by real freedoms and opportunities, not income alone. 📄 Read-aloud
What Is Value? Labor Theory vs Marginal Utility Two competing theories of why things have economic value: the labor put into them, or their usefulness at the margin. 📄 Read-aloud
The Ethics of Markets: What Should Money Buy? Some things can be bought and sold efficiently, but should everything be for sale? Economists and philosophers disagree. 📄 Read-aloud
Individualism vs Collectivism in Economic Thought A core divide in economic philosophy over whether the individual or the community should be the basic unit of analysis. 📄 Read-aloud
The Philosophy of Growth: Should Economies Always Grow? Why economic growth is treated as a default good, and the arguments of thinkers who question that assumption. 📄 Read-aloud
Economics as a Science: Models, Assumptions, and Their Limits Economics uses scientific tools, but its models rely on simplifying assumptions worth understanding critically. 📄 Read-aloud
Behavioral Economics and the Limits of Rational Choice How behavioral economics challenged the assumption that people make decisions with unlimited, calculating rationality. 📄 Read-aloud
Ronald Coase and the Theory of the Firm Why companies exist at all instead of everyone simply buying and selling everything through the open market. 📄 Read-aloud
Feminist Economics and Unpaid Labor Why so much genuinely valuable economic activity, like caregiving and household work, never appears in standard economic measurements. 📄 Read-aloud
Ecological Economics and the Limits to Growth Whether an economy can keep growing indefinitely on a planet with genuinely finite physical resources. 📄 Read-aloud
Libertarian Paternalism The philosophy behind nudges - steering people toward better choices while preserving their freedom to choose - and the debate over whether it is legitimate. 📄 Read-aloud
Justice and Desert: Do People Deserve Their Income? Whether market incomes reflect what people deserve, how philosophers have answered, and why the question matters for taxes and redistribution. 📄 Read-aloud
Gandhian Economics Mahatma Gandhi's economic ideas - self-reliant villages, trusteeship and simple living - and their influence and critics. 📄 Read-aloud
Schumacher and "Small Is Beautiful" How E.F. Schumacher challenged the pursuit of ever-larger scale and growth, proposed appropriate technology and "Buddhist economics", and why his ideas still resonate. 📄 Read-aloud