The Dismal Science
Economics, dear reader, is one of the most important aspects of your life. You either work or are dependent for your life on someone who does work. Unless you are a rather odd recluse, you use money and engage in trade. And you probably spend a good part of your waking hours engaged in economic activity.
However, economics has become known as the Dismal Science — a title it acquired by virtue of being so boring. The reason the subject of economics is regarded as dismal is that economists have taken a false approach, which I call the little brother complex. Economists look upon the physical sciences (especially mathematics and physics) with the awe and admiration reserved for a little boy’s attitude toward his older brother. They adopt a pseudoscientific guise and try to imitate the physical sciences in every detail.
Economics is a social science; it is a science dealing with man. Inherent in this is the fact that economics must deal with moral issues; it must deal with issues which arouse passions. But economists regard any passion or emotion as a weakness; they brand such aspects as unscientific.
When the social sciences try to imitate the physical sciences too closely, they overlook precisely those qualities pertaining to man, such as free will and morality. That is not true science, but it is very dismal. Free will and moral issues must be taken into consideration in any study of man. They are facts.
This book is about economics; but it is not dismal. It tells about a small group of men who depreciate the nation’s currency through their control of the money system — and thereby steal billions of dollars from the common people of this country. It talks about justice. And it talks about the evils which are yet to follow from this system if it is not destroyed.
So, dear reader, the author must offer an apology.
This will not be the typical dispassionate, pseudo-scientific, dismal economics book. It should not be disparaged for that reason. True science proceeds by reason and common sense. If the conclusions reached are also passionate, so be it. The Dismal Science has not achieved any great success.