I think everyone needs to stop and think about what they want out of economics.

I’ve been a regular and occasional poster on this sub for a few years. I don’t have a PHD, but I do hold a degree in economics. I have done my fair share of criticizing the field, but I believe there are still a lot of valuable insights that can be gleaned from it, especially if you incorporate other fields into your study. I have noticed an overall trend towards negativity and skepticism, and I don’t blame you. I also want to acknowledge that there are many other economists who feel the same way, and who are also trying to change the field for the better. <br><br>That being said, I am very disappointed in the “economics is useless” trend. First of all, I don’t think you should be blaming and judging the field as a whole. That is like me judging the entire field of medicine for being too narrow in its approach. You can still acknowledge the valuable things that the field of medicine has accomplished in the past and the role it plays in society, even if you also acknowledge that the field may be limited and needs to evolve. <br><br>Second, economics is not useless. If you look at other fields like history, anthropology, sociology, political science, geography, and psychology (especially the latter), economics is actually empirically valid and holds up to statistical analysis fairly well overall. <br><br>Third and most importantly, I feel like the vast majority of people who come into this sub and criticize the field do not know what they want out of it. If you list out and concretely define what empirical measures you want the field to improve on, and what theoretical perspectives should be used to best measure them, and you show a list of these things to 10 different economists, you will get 11 different opinions. The vast majority of people who criticize economics do not have a coherent vision for what they want it to be. The biggest critics of economics are often those with no interest in studying the social sciences, who want simple and easy answers to complex questions. Criticizing economics without any concrete and realistic vision for what you want to achieve and how is not productive, and is often nothing more than virtue signaling and generic and shallow skepticism.<br><br>Furthermore, the vast, vast majority of economists are not neoliberal zealots. In fact, many of them are Marxists who believe that capitalism leads to alienation and that we should democratize the means of production. Many of them agree that mainstream economics has historically been too narrow and dogmatic, and that we need to incorporate a wider array of perspectives into the field, including those from other academic disciplines. However, they may not agree on exactly what changes need to be made, and they may think that the changes and revisions that need to be made are more incremental than revolutionary.