We Aren’t Rocks (Or Chemicals, Or Atoms)
This is part 2 of answering the question: What makes economics so important?
One Takeaway
The economy isn’t a machine. It’s the result of real people making real choices. To understand the big picture, always start with the individual.
Real People in the Real World
Individual choices aren’t random. For example, let’s say a person chooses to save instead of spend. Or maybe they start a business instead of staying at a job. Or even move across the country for better opportunities. Each action involves an intentional decision. These decisions are what drive the economy.
That’s what makes economics different from the natural sciences. In physics, things fall from trees. In chemistry, elements combine. But in the economy, people act and choose.
Rocks don’t weigh trade-offs. Chemicals don’t change their behavior based on current events. But humans do. Every day. That’s why understanding the real world means starting with real people and how they act.
Why This Distinction Changes Everything
We all likely took a science class at some point in our lives. Whether it was biology, chemistry, or physics, these subjects are known as natural sciences. The natural sciences study forces that are (mostly) predictable and consistent. Gravity doesn’t care about your values. Electrons don’t change course because they read a headline. These systems are stable. They don’t think, and they don’t adapt.
People, by contrast, are constantly making choices based on what they know, what they expect, and what they care about. We adjust. We hesitate. We get things wrong and then try something else. And this makes human behavior fundamentally different from patterns we see in the physical world. Because of this, we can’t treat people like predictable rocks.
This difference isn’t just philosophical. Knowing this sets the stage for how we understand and study economic problems and solutions.
You can’t predict human action the way you predict a chemical reaction.
You can’t control an economy the way you control a machine.
And you can’t solve social problems by treating people like objects that respond mechanically to inputs.
Individuals Drive Outcomes
When we talk about “the economy growing” or “the government spending,” we’re using shortcuts. Markets don’t move themselves. Governments don’t make decisions. People do.
Behind every policy, every price change, every business success or failure, you’ll find people making decisions with their own values, knowledge, and limits in mind.
That’s why economics focuses on the individual. Because trying to explain big outcomes without understanding the small decisions behind them is like trying to explain a forest without explaining what trees are.
An Example: How a Coffee Shop Opens
Consider something as simple as a new coffee shop opening in your neighborhood. The local news might report it as “retail expansion creates new jobs.” But that misses the real story.
Behind that coffee shop is Jane, who worked at Starbucks for five years and noticed her customers always complained about long lines and impersonal service. She decided the neighborhood needed something different. Her decision wasn’t random, it was purposeful.
But Jane’s choice set off a chain of other individual decisions:
A local contractor agreed to renovate the space because the job paid well and fit his schedule.
A supplier chose to deliver beans and pastries because Sarah offered good terms.
A college student took a part-time job there because the hours worked with her class schedule.
Neighbors started buying coffee there instead of driving to the chain store because they preferred the atmosphere.
Each person made their own choice based on their situation. No one coordinated these decisions. No committee decided the neighborhood needed a coffee shop. It happened because individuals, each pursuing their own goals, found ways to cooperate that made everyone better off in their own way.
Sure, these actions created jobs and did expand retail. But these headlines are only important so long as we remember they are the result of our actions.
Why This Matters
Understanding that people are different from rocks helps explain the insights that follow in this book like:
Why we can work together with millions of strangers without anyone being in charge
Why one-size-fits-all policies rarely work as intended
Why growth comes from individual innovation and adaptation
This perspective grounds us. It reminds us that social trends aren’t the result of abstract forces or collective moods. They’re the result of people like you and me making trade-offs, acting off of what we know, and trying to do the best we can with what we’ve got.
The Bottom Line
People aren’t particles. We don’t move on fixed paths. We choose, we adapt, and we act with purpose. Understanding the economy means understanding the people who create it. We each have our own goals, constraints, and decisions. This is why economic science is so important. We need a science that takes these facts into account rather than assume them away.
This is Chapter 2 of Economics for Busy People, a book I’m sharing weekly on how economic thinking improves everyday decisions. [Read Chapter 1: We Are the Subjects of Economics] | Subscribe for weekly insights