I promised myself to do one thing, as soon as the number of Italians on Steemit had reached the fateful threshold of hundred: writing about the resarch to which, until now, I dedicated more time overall. Right: @cryptofarmer, before getting passionate for countryside living and for cryptos, before creating a family, had a profession not very popular in every way: the economist. A not very popular profession, I said, in the way of being uncommon, and in the way of not being much socially appreciated today. And for a good reason: to appreciate the economic science today would be like appreciating the medical science in time of an epidemy.
The question is: what have I understood about economics during my years of studying and working in that field? I understood many things, but the most important is this one: economics is a paradox. From this derives a corollary: as our mind struggles to accept and understand paradoxes, economics is a science hard to understand. Paradoxical - to give a definition - is a proposition that seems to contradict itseld, to be absurd or at odds with everyday experience, but that actually expresses a possible truth.
Why would economics be paradoxical? Consider some of the economists that left a mark in the history of economic thought. The father of the modern study of this discipline, Adam Smith from Scotland, is famous for having described market as an invisible hand and for noticing how our society advances more because of individuals who pursue their own interest rather than because of those who declare to pursue societal interest. Sounds familiar, Steemians? Another Austrian economist from the twentieth century, Joseph Schumpeter, described capitalism's evolution in terms of creative destruction, minting a couple of words that became a pillar in the study of economics. Another binomial name was created from another Austrian: it's spontaneous order (emerging patterns, rules and norms from apparent chaos), a concept developed by Friedrich Von Hayek, Nobel prize in Economics in 1974, and used today to described evolution processes in biology, language and internet itself.
Invisible hand, creative destrucion, sponteneous order: do you agree with me that these are all examples of a reality "that seems to contradict, being absurd or at odds with everyday experience"? If you do, you have identified the paradoxical nature of fundamental concepts of economics, like the market process, innovation and the emergence of patterns and rules.
That said, there is another good news. We live in a time when these kind of paradoxes are emerging. I mentioned Steemit before: many of its users have now clear in mind that the magic feature of this platform is to align - thanks to how it's shaped - the individual to the collective interests. Our own interest to maximize our author rewards is pursued maximizing the value of our posts. By doing this, we maximize the platform's value too. By writing a worthy post, I (author) win and everyone else too (curathors, in a narrow sense, and readers, in a broader sense).
From another point of view, many of the businesses that grew faster in the last years are described as examples of sharing-economy, blending two words that - in olden times when individualism was stigmatized as antithetical to collectivism, capitalism to communism, United States to Soviet Union - were considered complete opposite: the concept of noble, unselfish, "sharing" and that of dismal, selfish, "economy". From this point of view isn't it quite paradoxical that today the world leader of ospitality (Airbnb) do not own any building? Or that the world leader in telecommunications (Skype) do not own any infrastructure?
In other words, we could describe the epic change that economy is undergoing in these years in term of emergent paradoxes and unbearable contradictions. These last - a contradiction consists in two propositions that can not be both true at the same time - are those that are sinking our economy, our society, our environment.
When you ask an entrepreneur, a shop owner or a professional about economic crisis, she will likely tell you that the problem are taxes and the cost of regulations. Curious - better: contradictory - effect of a State that, according to the (Italian) Constitution, should "remove the economic and social obstacles, that [...] hinder the full development of the human person [...]". Other people will tell you that the economy is now at risk because of finance: again a contradiction in an activity that, according to its name - from latin finis (end, conclusion) -, should help us reach our ends and reduce several kinds of economic risks. Other people will tell that the problem is euro and the solution is to print more - as if a mean (money) could substitute its end (exchange and prosperity).
I will not tell you which is THE problem with economy today, neither have I a silver bullet to solve it. I'm saying that economics is a science difficult to understand. Not because of being more complicate than other sciences, but because of being paradoxical.
Let me know if you are interested in reading more about it or about some particular points. I would never insist in writing something that do not have value neither for you, nor for my Steemwallet. :-)
You can find the Italian version of this post here. The Italian community on Steemit is growing fast and from the time I wrote this, three weeks ago, it grew more than 30%.
im not italian but i want to follow your post..
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