ABSTRACT
A modern economist, George J. Stigler, has phrased it differently: 'Economics is the study of the operation of economic organizations, and economic organizations are social arrangements to deal with the production and distribution of economic goods and services.’ Both of these definitions of economics emphasize that economists study certain kinds of activity. Since the people who operate in the economic system are the same people who are found in the legal or political system, it is to be expected that their behaviour will be, in a broad sense, similar. Economics does appear to be more developed than the other social sciences. But the great advantage which economics has possessed is that economists are able to use the 'measuring rod of money'. Utility theory seems more likely to handicap than to aid economists in their work in contiguous disciplines. The extension of the boundaries of Economics is hardly prompted by any remarkable successes achieved by economists in their own fields.
