I’ve Heard They Don’t Have Colors in Norway

Economics is a social science that is very difficult to test and can only rarely be observed in the way it is actually written. Ceteris Paribus changes in the United States economy don’t exactly happen very often and so economists theorize and analyze sometimes imperfect data. Socialistic economic ideas don’t require ceteris paribus changes in variables. They don’t really even require much economic analysis at all. This is because socialists see a world outside of economics and outside of maximizing surpluses and minimizing costs. They don’t care about least cost producers or competitive markets. They care about people and in a subject that I often times find inhuman it is refreshing to hear about something that is a little more humanistic. Economics is in fact a science but too often economists get lost in all their equations and graphs and forget that they are dealing with human beings. The utopian socialists never lost site of the human side of economics.

Did the utopian socialists come up with more efficient models or groundbreaking new economic principles? Probably not, but they still played a vital role in humanizing a science that was getting a little too robotic. Our society bashes communism and socialism, yet we have hundreds of government programs and many that actually distribute wealth. Everyone doesn’t agree with all of these programs but most people whether conservative or liberal seem to like social security. Most people seem to also think that “The New Deal” was helpful in getting us out of the Great Depression. Most importantly though, most people should realize that so many of the wonderful aspects of our country and government exist today because of the ideas of the utopian socialists and the dialogue that they started back in the early 19th century.

“I would rather live in New Harmony than in a society that was governed straight out of “The Wealth of Nations”.

Economics is a science and that is very important to realize when analyzing economic ideas and the thinkers behind them. It seems that often times economists get lost in their equations and their graphs and they lose sight of the human element. The utopian socialists never lost site of the human side of economics. I am not attempting to disvalue the contributions of Adam Smith or John Stuart Mill or any of the early economists but, their writings are best thought of as economic literature and the ideas that they write about need to be taken with a grain of salt as well. I would rather live in New Harmony than in a society that was governed straight out of “The Wealth of Nations”.