The Expansion of Economics: Academic Evolution or Imperial Colonialism?
Recently, economics has been breaking past the traditional boundaries of markets and money, expanding its territory into every corner of human daily life—including love, crime, art, and sports. Academic circles refer to this as "Economics Imperialism," redefining the discipline as the study of human "incentives" and "rational choices."
The driving confidence behind this movement is that if a choice exists wherever humans act, then every phenomenon in the world can be viewed through the lens of economics. In fact, this audacious imagination has proudly established itself as the academic mainstream, even capturing the Nobel Prize in Economics.
However, a fundamental question arises. What happens if economics ventures beyond tangible metrics like money or efficiency to encompass all of humanity’s subjective "value choices"? This invincible logic, which expanded its shield to deflect criticism, may paradoxically become a fatal poison—an act of hubris that destroys the territories of other disciplines while causing economics to lose its own identity.
An Invincible Shield Rendered a Mere Word Game
If economics declares it can explain every human value choice, there ceases to be anything in the world it cannot account for. For instance, the actions of a philanthropist donating their entire fortune to society, or a freedom fighter sacrificing their life for their country, can be conveniently packaged as "a rational choice made because it provided the individual with greater psychological satisfaction (utility)."
While this logic may appear sophisticated at first glance, it is actually a fatal tautology—a mere word game. Conclusions like "Humans choose what they want because it is their choice" can retroactively fit any phenomenon, but they fail to provide any real analysis of why an individual came to possess those specific values in the first place. In gaining a shield that can explain everything, economics falls into the trap of discovering nothing new.
Erasing the Unique Territories of Neighboring Disciplines
When complex human behavior is reduced entirely to individual value choices and calculations, the unique values that neighboring disciplines have built over centuries lose their footing.
Sociologists vehemently object to this reductionism. They argue that human choices are rarely independent calculations occurring solely inside an individual’s brain; rather, they are frequently "determined" by social class, structures, and cultural contexts. A low-income individual choosing a cup of instant noodles is not demonstrating a rational preference, but is navigating a constraint imposed by social structure.
The same holds true for political science. Politics is not merely a process of adding and subtracting individual interests; it is a history of power dynamics, deeply held beliefs, and compromise. Viewing politics strictly through the cost-benefit calculations of voter turnout or policy preferences leaves the core essence of politics—"justice within a community"—flatly fossilized. When economics attempts to absorb all values, it is no wonder other social sciences react with fury, labeling it "academic destruction" and "colonialism."
Gaining Explanatory Power, Losing Predictive Power
The most potent weapons that allowed economics to claim the throne of modern social sciences were "precision" and "predictability." Because it possessed quantified indicators—such as the principle that consumption decreases when prices rise, or that investment shrinks when interest rates go up—it could predict the future and design public policies.
However, if economics erases the clear baseline of money or efficiency and infinitely expands into the realm of subjective values, it must willingly lay down its own weapons. How can subjective values, which differ by individual and situation, be formulated into equations and quantified into data? By broadening its scope to evade criticism, the discipline inadvertently forfeits its greatest strength.
Conclusion: From Imperial Hubris to Symbiotic Convergence
"A discipline that can explain everything explains nothing."
This is the sobering truth faced by an economics that sought to infinitely expand its academic empire. While individual choices are undoubtedly important, an economics that fails to acknowledge the social structures surrounding those choices (sociology), the operations of power (political science), and the limits of human psychology (psychology) is reduced to nothing more than empty equations.
Fortunately, contemporary economics is gradually laying down this imperial hubris. It has chosen a path of convergence, joining hands with neighboring fields through Behavioral Economics, which acknowledges that humans are not always rational, and Institutional Economics, which emphasizes the vital role of social frameworks. Rather than remaining a destructive force that monopolizes academic territory, economics is listening to other voices to understand human beings more deeply. Perhaps that is the true, meaningful boundary of the territory economics should be expanding today.
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