Let’s Stop Thinking Like Economists

Opinion

It is time to reclaim other ways of thinking. To restore the rightful place of ethics, solidarity, the collective, and everything that cannot be calculated

By Samad Ramoly

It is time to say it clearly: mainstream economic thought has colonised our minds, and it has left us impoverished. For decades, we have been taught to view the world through a single lens: that of calculation, optimisation, and cost-benefit analysis. We have been sold the idea that human beings are rational creatures who maximise their own self-interest, that the market is the ultimate judge of value, and that efficiency must take precedence over everything else. This vision is not neutral. It is an ideology disguised as a science.

The Lie of Homo Economicus

Standard economics posits a cold, calculating individual, inherently selfish, who weighs every decision against the yardstick of personal utility. But no mother watching over her sick child, no volunteer giving up their time, no friend sacrificing their weekend to help a loved one is “maximising utility.” These actions completely escape market logic. Reducing humanity to a spreadsheet mutilates what gives us our dignity: our capacity to act out of love, duty, and solidarity, expecting nothing in return.

Commodification: Not Everything Has a Price

Economic reasoning pushes us to believe that everything can, and must, be monetised. From daycare spots and organ donations to carbon credits and hospital waiting lines, there is supposedly always an optimal price, a market solution. This is false, and it is dangerous. Certain things lose their meaning the moment they are sold. A bought vote is no longer a vote. A monetised friendship is no longer a friendship. Nature, once priced, becomes a mere commodity that can be destroyed if the price is right. Putting a price tag on life, justice, or dignity is not evaluating them—it is betraying them.

A Fake Neutrality Suffocating Democratic Debate

Economic choices are presented to us as mere technical questions reserved for experts, far removed from politics and values. This is a deception. Should water be privatised? Should there be a minimum wage? Should we tax the wealthy? These are not equations to be solved; they are societal choices, deeply political, that involve our shared vision of justice. By dressing up these debates in graphs and models, economism dispossesses citizens of their decision-making power, transferring it to a caste of “experts” who claim to hold objective truth where there are only choices of values.

The Myth of Rationality

Even on its own turf, the theory collapses. Human beings do not calculate the way the model claims; they are influenced by their emotions, their surroundings, their habits, and their irrational fears. The myth of the rational agent has never described anyone; it has only served to justify policies that benefit those who already know how to play the market game.

Reclaiming Power Over Our Lives

Thinking like an economist means accepting to see the world in terms of yield, incentives, and efficiency, to the detriment of meaning, justice, and human connection. It means allowing the language of the market to invade spheres that should remain alien to it: education, health care, culture, intimacy, and nature itself.

It is time to reclaim other ways of thinking. To restore the rightful place of ethics, solidarity, the collective, and everything that cannot be calculated. To remind ourselves that a human being is not a utility function, and that society is not a market.

Let us stop thinking like economists. Let us think, quite simply, like human beings.

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 4 September 2026