Mike Moffatt at about.com talks about math and the economic way of thinking.


I ask:

What is the "economic way of thinking?" I see this explained in textbooks all the time as thinking "rationally" where "rationality" is typically defined as behavior that maximizes some strategic function (utility) subject to some constraint. So my question is, aren't the "economic way of thinking" (at least the way many mainstream economic texts read) and the "math" way of thinking really one and the same?

It seems the Federal Reserve Bank would agree with my assessment: http://www.minneapolisfed.org/pubs/region/03-09/econ.cfm

It further seems that what we need is a little less math, a little less thinking like closed-box economists, and a little more thinking like the holistic scientists we are suppose to be.