ABSTRACT
Economics students tend to get a misleading view of social problems. Calling something a social problem entails a value judgment. Ordinarily the economist takes common judgments to define problems, although anyone is warranted in contending that some other things are unrecognized social problems. Economics principles textbooks typically start to make economists even out of students taking what is likely to be their only course in the subject. The books swamp them with so much technical analysis that there is not space even to identify the range of socioeconomic problems they may later recognize as people or try to deal with as citizens, problems that all have an important economic dimension.
