How Economics Betrayed Its Own Classical Principles
There is a core justification upon which mainstream economics brands itself a "science" and claims superiority over other social sciences. It is their pride in analyzing the world through a rigid, unyielding axis: the immutable, fundamental traits of humanity that never change regardless of era or culture—namely, "non-evolving, classical selfishness" and the "supply-demand model."
If they possessed even a shred of academic honesty, they ought to rigorously apply this classical grand premise to any given realm.
Had they remained faithful to that principle, the current phenomenon where "procreation (childbirth)"—the most powerful instinct and manifestation of selfishness in human history—has come to a screeching halt should be diagnosed economically as an "immense irrationality and catastrophe (market failure)." This is because the equilibrium of classical values has utterly collapsed.
Yet, looking at the interpretations economists offer when they invade other domains, one cannot help but shake their head. Their perspective is not a detached, independent economic viewpoint. It is the pinnacle of deceitful "hindsight bias"—an act of jumping onto contemporary trends and fads, only to belatedly draw graphs and insist, "This is the new rationality."
The Hypocrisy of Parasitizing Trends While Abandoning Classical Principles
A true economic perspective should have looked at the current low birth rate crisis and declared: "This is an abnormal market distortion where environmental costs have grown entirely too high compared to the value of the supply (the child). In light of classical selfishness, this is a severe disequilibrium and a state of absolute irrationality."
Instead, today’s economists quietly discard their classical tenets. They pluck phrases that look like they belong in a hip lifestyle magazine and masquerade them as the baseline of rationality, claiming: "Since today’s youth prefer YOLO (You Only Live Once) and value an independent, self-directed life, it is rational for them not to have children."
What on earth does this have to do with the classical supply-demand model? This is not scientific analysis; it is a mere word game of chasing public trends and retroactively fitting them into plausible formulas. Lacking the capacity to analyze the underlying shifts of an era, they sit in the aftermath of a passing fad, swaggering and boasting, "Look, doesn’t my equation prove it?" No attitude could be more irrational and dishonest for a discipline.
The Chief Culprit Polluting the Word "Rationality"
Ultimately, economics is thoroughly polluting the very word "rationality." The rationality they speak of is not a scientific standard grounded in unchangeable human nature and grand principles. It is nothing more than a casual neighborhood pub conversation—"Well, that’s the trend right now, so that must be what’s rational"—dressed up in a coat of mathematical symbols.
If social trends were to flip tomorrow and trigger a new era of high fertility, they would undoubtedly reverse their words overnight and layout yet another post-hoc rationalization, declaring: "Humans inherently possess a classical selfishness for procreation, so having many children is classically rational."
Modern economics operates without a standard, without a spine, hoisting its sails purely to cater to the tastes of the powerful and the whims of fleeting trends. This is its true, opportunistic nature.
Conclusion: The Impotence of a Spineless Empire
"If non-evolving selfishness is established as your core principle, your baseline must always remain classical."
This is the most painful counterpunch that dismantles the methodological scam of economics. They act as if they hold immutable scientific laws when dominating other disciplines, but they flee and hide behind trendy fads the moment they face a complex reality where their tools fail to work.
A discipline that cannot explain even the most primal instinct of humanity, resorting instead to wrapping the lyrics of a popular song in formulas, is no longer a science. It is time to cast away this arrogant calculator that seeks to govern the entire world while drifting aimlessly without a standard. Only when we strip away the hollow shell of shallow hindsight bias can we truly confront the essence of humanity and society—unshaken by the fleeting trends of any era.
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