Mainstream economics

Mainstream Economics, Money as Medium of Exchange, Unit of Account, and Store of Value, by Joshua Mahorter.

Although often unintentional, one of the most fundamental errors that pervades mainstream economics instruction is to present economic categories independent of human action— This error is fundamental because, once committed, it pervades all aspects of the study of economics, making them unrealistic.

For failure to treat economics appropriately as a social science, including human actions, interactions, subjective valuations, and choices, all kinds of economic categories lose their significance and become disconnected from the real world.

For example, a teacher could present textbook information about the definition of prices without explaining what a price is and how it is formed through property, subjective valuation, voluntary exchange, etc.

Supply and demand graphs can be presented without articulating the underlying human choices that can be momentarily captured in such a graph.

The critical role and function of the entrepreneur is likewise largely ignored in mainstream economics.

This is also done chronically when it comes to money.

On the first day of a typical introductory microeconomics class, if students are asked what they think economics is about, most of them will answer that it has to do with money, the stock market, and personal finances.