foreign to learn that choice and not money is the unifying feature of all the things that economists study the fundamental economic problem is that we live in a universe of scarcity our resources from copper to water to our time are limited in availability even though we have a lot of these things we nevertheless must make choices about how we are going to use them most people think they are summoning their inner economists when they're budgeting for a big purchase or hunting down the best price for something they want and that certainly is economic behavior but you are also summoning your inner economists when you are befuddled by the paint color your friend chooses for their kitchen or when you're deciding on what sites you want to see while on vacation economics is the study of people's choices on every level because every choice we make requires us to use our resources in a way that closes the door on some other opportunity you've probably noticed that there are two principles courses in economics microeconomics and macro economics this class covers microeconomics which is the study of how people businesses and governments make choices and how those choices affect prices the allocation of resources and the well-being of other people macroeconomics on the other hand is the study of economy-wide phenomena such as the growth rate of a country's total economic output the inflation rate or the unemployment rate economic growth that is the increase in per capita production and consumption didn't start until the 1800s and with our Newfound wealth came a cycle of booms and busts that impact the fortunes of everyone macroeconomists focus on those new issues microeconomics is timeless it's about where our incentives came from and how we respond to them John Neville Keynes the father of John Maynard Keynes who is himself considered the father of modern macroeconomics made a distinction between positive economics the fact-based study of what is and normative economics the subjective Judgment of what should be when we say that income taxes disincentivize work that is a positive statement an objective fact about the world that we learn through this study of economics but if that statement is followed by a call to lower income taxes we have switched into normative economics or a prescription for the world based on our subjective opinion about how things ought to be John Neville Keynes said that the art of Economics is being able to relate the Lessons Learned in positive economics to the goals determined in normative economics I think a better distinction might be between decoupling and contextualizing when we are decoupling we are considering each claim in isolation free of any potential implications when evaluating whether the minimum wage leads to unemployment we consider our assumptions about the supply and demand for labor in isolation and see if the conclusion logically follows from the premises yet we will have the urge to contextualize and demand that the implications of our conclusions be considered by re-centering the discussion around poverty and whether people have the right to a living wage it isn't that economics has nothing to say about poverty and human rights indeed economics is directly focused on human well-being but the art of Economics is doing the due diligence of decoupling and thinking through the claims carefully and logically before seeing how our new understanding of the situation informs the context in which we want to consider it there's a lot of agreement among those who teach the principles of economics that the goal of the course is to teach students this art of Economics or as we sometimes say to teach you how to think like an economist the joy of learning the art of Economics is its power in Unlocking The Mysteries of the world in an instrumental way in economics we like to start our analysis by assuming that people are rational but the benefit of learning economics is that it can help you become a more rational person whatever your values are economics teaches a way of thinking that will allow you to more systematically achieve those values whether your goal is running a company successfully or finding true love or fighting Injustice in the world an understanding of Economics is going to be useful in achieving those goals you've taken your first step into that larger world