How to think like an economist (if you wish to)…

Brad DeLong has a long post on the topic:

I have long had a “thinking like an economist” lecture in the can. But I very rarely give it. It seems to me that it is important stuff—that people really should know it before they begin studying economics, because it would make studying economics much easier. But it also seems to me—usually—that it is pointless to give it at the start of a course to newBs: they just won’t understand it. And it also seems to me—usually—that it is also pointless to give it to students at the end of their college years: they either understand it already, or it is too late.

By continuity that would seem to imply that there is an optimal point in the college curriculum to teach this stuff. But is that true?

Every new subject requires new patterns of thought; every intellectual discipline calls for new ways of thinking about the world. After all, that is what makes it a discipline: a discipline that allows people to think about a subject in some new way. Economics is no exception.

In a way, learning an intellectual discipline like economics is similar to learning a new language or being initiated into a club. Economists’ way of thinking allows us to see the economy more sharply and clearly than we could in other ways. (Of course, it can also cause us to miss certain relationships that are hard to quantify or hard to think of as purchases and sales; that is why economics is not the only social science, and we need sociologists, political scientists, historians, psychologists, and anthropologists as well.) In this chapter we will survey the intellectual landmarks of economists’ system of thought, in order to help you orient yourself in the mental landscape of economics.

Nice bit..