3 economic concepts i wish i had more time to explore

this post will essentially be exploring three economic concepts i’ve been obsessed with as of late : the passion economy, the attention economy and the rational choice theory. each sub-heading consists of a short write-up about the topic and a summary of my thoughts on it.

the passion economy

this is the only topic among the three i’m currently exploring in massive detail.

to get to topic, i’ve often been influenced by passion on numerous occasions. i don’t tend to start projects i’m not passionate about. for example, i started this blog in the thick of covid 19 because i was passionate about writing and expressing myself. i wouldn’t have started it if i’d been forced by somebody else. passion drives my writing.

similarly, the passion economy refers to people’s passions being the main way by which they earn a living wage. the passion economy is fascinating due to the massive increase in white collared workers quitting their jobs to work on building start ups or earning money through monetising their passions. it’s interesting how, earlier, certain career paths, especially those in the arts, were often regarded as “unstable” and “shaky.” but the rampant increase in AI and the massive strides being taken in the field of automation has truly proved that no job can be considered “safe” now.

it’s both comforting and terrifying to think any and every job can be replaced almost equally when automation reaches its’ peak.

the attention economy

this one is particularly fascinating to me because of how we’ve always deeply known this concept but it’s never been eloquently put into words. simply put, in the attention economy, your attention is the equivalent of a dollar.

heard of the saying “if you think about dirt, dirt grows?” well, the attention economy capitalises on our attention spans, that are harder to attract by the day. short form content might have played a role in our lowered attention spans. but this just means industries of all forms— advertising, publishing, financial— have now become keener with

1) what they pay attention to

and 2) what their consumers pay attention to

in other words, it’s more essential than ever that we consume consciously. we should allocate our attention to a few things that genuinely interest us, instead of losing ourselves in mindless twitter beef. (maybe i’m calling myself out.)

rational choice theory

part of why this theory is so interesting is that it assumes humans—who are naturally flawed— make rational decisions. this theory grounds its’ basis on the assumption that people make decisions in a way that maximizes their own utility (satisfaction or benefit)

impulse purchasing is a real phenomenon but it can be argued that the utility being maximised here is the protection of a person’s mental health; this is in the scenario that the reason for the impulse purchase is due to a bad day at work- any scenario with the potential to adversely impact a person’s mental health.

however, emotions do cloud judgement. acting in favour of a law or an accepted social norm even when a person intrinsically does not conform to it couldn’t necessarily be classified into acting in favour of their own utility. unless the utility in question is their social standing. it could be argued that is it really worth having a higher social standing when a person’s intrinsic beliefs are being compromised as a result.

concluding remarks;

what are some concepts you’re interested in? not economics-related specifically, but is there something in your classes that you’ve been peeling your eyes out to explore? or is there a book you’ve been wanting to read? let me know in the comments!

see you next week!