.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Is thinking like Gary Becker unhealthy? Yes.

Wendy Brown, a political theorist at UC-Berkeley, makes a great point about the dangers of "thinking like an economist". She asserts that the logic of economics has degraded democracy by analyzing public policy and political decision-making in terms of market-values. As a result, the state has become managerial and all political discourse gravitates towards questions of efficiency and optimization of production rather than values. She also points out that this has made it easier for transnational governance bodies and private industries to wrest control of the public sphere away from the citizenry because the citizenry also tends to view political decision-making in economic terms.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Most economists don't "think like economists", largely because they have a fleshed out understanding of the subject matter, but many of their students "think like economists". The manner in which introductory courses are taught and the manner in which pop economics enters public discourse works to promote detrimental values. I say this as a prospective economics major who is very interested in the subject. btw, averrones, I don't think your title is misleading. There's a particular school of economic thought that has attempted to analyze social behavior using rational choice theory and it's impacted public discourse

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http://amle.aom.org/content/10/4/643.short

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http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1942691?sid=21105808985123&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&uid=3739976

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http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2138205?uid=3739864&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21102789006803

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

In college, my SOC101 class had a chapter on Karl Marx, my PHIL150 class had a chapter on Karl Marx, my POLS200 class had a chapter on Karl Marx, and in my dual minor my ECON350 class had a chapter on Karl Marx and my FILM300 class had a chapter on Groucho Marx.

I'm not sure how that's all relevant to this thread, but it seems somewhat profound to me.

That's pretty typical. Marx has always been required reading for Sociology and Political Science majors.