Hasan Economics

A braindead economic policy or opinion, which can often be seen held by Hasan Piker

A millionaire communist - that's some Hasan Economics right there.

by Longboyy February 10, 2024

Critical Economics Theory

The radical notion that the economy is not a force of nature like gravity, but a human-made system, and therefore can be changed by humans. It challenges the idea that concepts like "market forces," "trickle-down," or "austerity" are immutable laws, arguing instead that they are often just convenient stories told by the wealthy to justify their wealth and convince the poor to accept their poverty. It’s the intellectual equivalent of pointing out that the emperor’s new clothes are not only invisible, but they’re also made of a fabric that was subsidized by the taxpayers.

Example: "When the CEO claimed that giving his workers a raise was 'economically impossible' due to market pressures, the union rep, well-versed in critical economics theory, pointed out that it was perfectly possible; they just preferred to use that money for stock buybacks instead."

by Dumu The Void February 14, 2026

Nickel and Dime Economics

Governments tax people through excess fees, legal penalties, and other forms of taxation in the hope to recoup revenue.

one city in Missouri imposed many new fines and taxes to add revenue to their budget. The method they implemented is called Nickel and Dime Economics

by jondich September 20, 2022

Theory of Constructed Economics

The argument that "the economy" is not a natural force like weather, but a human-constructed game with invented rules, players (households, firms), and scores (GDP, money). Concepts like "inflation," "unemployment," and "the market" are models we built; they then take on a life of their own and shape our behavior, but they began as ideas, not laws of physics.

*Example: "A 'recession' is two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. GDP itself is a constructed metric invented in the 1930s. The Theory of Constructed Economics shows that the terrifying, objective-sounding force that 'causes' layoffs is actually a story we tell ourselves using numbers we invented. We built the game, forgot we built it, and now tremble at its rules."*

by Abzu Land January 31, 2026

Critical Theory of Economics

The application of Critical Theory to economics as a whole—examining how economic knowledge is produced, whose interests it serves, and how it might be transformed. Critical Theory of Economics asks: How has economics justified capitalism? Why are certain assumptions (rationality, equilibrium, efficiency) treated as universal? What would economics look like if it prioritized human needs over market outcomes? Drawing on Marxist, feminist, and ecological economics, it insists that economics is never neutral—it's always political. The question is which politics it serves.

"Economics says markets allocate resources efficiently. Critical Theory of Economics asks: efficiently for whom? At what cost? Markets produce winners and losers—economics that ignores that is ideology. Critical theory demands an economics that studies power, that centers human flourishing, that imagines alternatives. Not just describing how the economy works, but asking how it could work differently."

by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal March 4, 2026

Critical Theory of Economics

A framework that turns critical theory's tools onto the discipline of economics itself—examining how economics as a field produces knowledge, serves power, and shapes reality. The critical theory of economics asks not just about economic phenomena but about economics: who gets to be an economist, what counts as economic knowledge, how economic models shape the reality they claim to describe, how the discipline's pretensions to science mask its service to power. It draws on history of economic thought, sociology of knowledge, and critical theory to understand economics not as a neutral science but as a social practice with political effects—a way of making worlds, not just describing them.

Example: "Her book showed how economic models don't just describe markets—they create them, training people to behave as the models predict. Critical Theory of Economics: turning critique from the economy to economics itself."

by Dumu The Void March 14, 2026

Hard Problem of Economics

The micro-macro divide: Economics struggles to coherently connect the behavior of individual agents (assumed to be rational, self-interested) with the emergent phenomena of the whole economy (booms, busts, inflation). Models that work for a household or firm fail catastrophically at the national level (the fallacy of composition). The hard problem is that the economy is a complex, adaptive system of billions of interacting, emotional, and sometimes irrational people. It's like trying to predict the weather by studying a single molecule of air. The elegant mathematical models provide a comforting illusion of certainty but repeatedly break down in the face of real-world crises, bubbles, and panics.

Example: For an individual, saving money is prudent. But if everyone suddenly increases savings simultaneously (the "paradox of thrift"), aggregate demand plummets, businesses fail, unemployment rises, and people end up poorer overall. The rational individual act leads to a collectively irrational outcome. The hard problem: Economics cannot be reliably scaled up. Policies that seem sound in theory (austerity, deregulation) can trigger disaster in practice because the model's simplifying assumptions (perfect information, rational actors) evaporate in the chaotic reality of herds, fear, and speculation. The economy is a story we tell ourselves, and sometimes the characters rebel against the plot. Hard Problem of Economics.

by Enkigal January 24, 2026