Let’s start with an addled view of what it is to be human. According to economists, it is the ability to calculate. Their picture of the human is that of Homo economicus, “economic man”, a calculating machine who is always weighing up the costs and benefits of every course of action.
Economics is about “economising” –eliminating waste (including waste of time) so that all behaviour becomes efficiently purposive. The task of economics, according to the economist Dennis Robertson, is to “economise on love, that scarce resource”. We need to economise on love because we live in a world of scarcity and cannot afford to spend too much time on wasteful activities such as love. Economics offers us a way of getting what we want without love. Excluded is the idea that we might “want” to love and be loved, that we might want beauty, leisure and many other things that make life worth living.
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