Why study economics? isn't it just boring crap for the nerds in college? No! Economics is the science of human action - of how humans interact and form functioning societies and ultimately develop civilizations. Ignorance of it is a major reason for many of the idiotic governmental policies we see today; promoting as they so often do actual anti-civilizational outcomes. "What makes the science of economics necessary and important is the fact that while human life and well-being depend on the production of wealth, and the production of wealth depends on the division of labor, the division of labor does not exist or function automatically. Its functioning crucially depends on the laws and institutions countries adopt. A country can adopt laws and institutions that make it possible for the division of labor to grow and flourish, as the United States did in the late eighteenth century. Or it can adopt laws and institutions that prevent the division of labor from growing and flourishing, as is the case in most of the world today, and as was the case everywhere for most of history. Indeed, a country can adopt laws and institutions that cause the division of labor to decline and practically cease to exist." -George Riesman