In high school, I took an economics class. There were graphs and equations. My eyes crossed and my brain shut off. For reasons that are still a little fuzzy, I found myself in my first microeconomics class at the JC. There were about 45-50 people on the first day. The professor advised us that only about 10 of us would show up to the final. He was correct. Only about 10 people made it all the way through the class. On that final day, I was one of three women who completed the course. I eventually found myself clumsily muddling my way through an Economics degree. I didn’t do it well or with grace. I’m no great economist. I’m not even a good economist. I am however someone who loves subject. Economics is a topic that encompasses everything from what we eat for breakfast to the vast political and social rifts that plague our lives. It is so important, but so inaccessible to most people. Many people write about economics. Those people typically are herringbone blazer wearing, graph wielding, mathematical formula crafting, PhD. holding men. While what they teach us is valuable, it is still very foreign and inaccessible to most of us.
I promise I will never put up a graph or write an equation. Economics really is the study of everything and as such can easily be explored intuitively and creatively through discussion and thought exercises.
To begin, what is “the economy?” The Oxford Dictionary defines the economy as “the wealth and resources of a country or region, especially in terms of the production and consumption of goods and services.” What does this actually mean? “This,” I say waving at everything around me. The economy is the aggregation of everything. Now, I understand that when we discuss the economy, we talk about things like GDP, employment, and the stock market. Those things are all pieces of what is happening with the economy, but it’s not the whole story.
Let’s break it down
First, let’s talk about “wealth and resources” part. Everything is wealth or a resource. Everything. The air we breathe, the food we eat, the time we spend, the energy and focus we give things are all wealth and resources. So right off the bat, economics just got that much more interesting.
Next part: “Of a country or region.” That’s us, you guys! We’re the country. You are the economy. I’m economy. All 300 million of us are the economy. That’s pretty exciting. What seemed mere minutes ago to be an abstract and distant subject matter has just now become all about you.
Ok, so now for the part that we all associate with economics, “production and consumption of goods and services.” This is the working, buying, selling, and investing that we all think of when we reference “the economy.” A lot of this involves money, but it’s also how we spend our time. It’s how we make decisions about which bottle of wine to purchase. This again is everything, only in a slightly more herringbone way of approaching the matter. So, there you have it. The economy is everything.
As we head into autumn, which for us is also grape harvest season and fire season, we become acutely aware of the impacts of our decision making. We are literally reaping what we’ve sown agriculturally speaking, but, we are also reeling from the effects of climate change, income inequality, and resource scarcity that have been many decades in the making. How do we sow the seeds of a healthier, safer, more sustainable future? Well, the answer is economics. It’s more important now than ever to have these discussions in a way that doesn’t involve graphs but empowers us to go about the business of making everyday decisions collaboratively and with hope.
Econ 101: Not your white guy's economics column - Sonoma County Gazette
Read More
No comments:
Post a Comment