DEFINING ECONOMICS
Simply put, ‘economics studies economic activities of the human being’ (a working definition). Humanities are intricately connected as all aim to study the differentiated human activities—that is why inter-disciplinary approach to study humanities is considered wiser
What are Economic Activities?
In a very simple way, all activities where money is involved can be called economic activities. And wherever money comes in question, there comes the economic motive/gain—several examples can be taken of it—getting job, giving a job, buying and selling something, doing a business, so on and so forth. Things are still a bit complicated! Visiting religious places for prayer is clearly not an economic activity but what about giving alms to beggars there or putting some money on the places of worship or for that matter religious donations. Can we call them our economic activities? It looks difficult to say! Here, other than the activity of prayer all are economic activities! However, defining economics has not been as easy as it has been presented here—defining every discipline has been a complex and contentious task for that matter. Widely used and quoted definitions of the discipline revolve around the uses of resources and their distribution. Let us feel the technicality involved in a typical definition with the help of two such acclaimed definitions taken as reference-
Economics is the study of how societies use scarce resources to produce valuable commodities and distribute them among different people
Economics studies how individuals, firms, governments and other organisations within our society make choices and how these choices determine a society’s use of its resources
Economics is the study of ‘how society uses its scarce resources’ is probably the most used definition which is catchy as well as concise also
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