I was introduced to this term while attending a lecture by a visiting professor at UC Davis. I was under the impression at the time that I was on track to being an economist. It struck me that the insights that most excited me could not be formulated into an equation, and in a sense economics today can be seen as an attempt to formulate every phenomenon within a mathematical model. An idea that seems almost Quixotic. The danger is that there are many who cheer us on as we tilt at windmills, hoping that we will be able to warn them to run for cover when the weather changes.

There is no substitute for the rigor of mathematics, but there are those instances where it may not be efficient, as when using callipers to measure the coastline. But it is not the mathematics that is the problem, economists would be infinitely poorer and less able without it. It is not that we translate real world phenomena into greek symbols and then translate them back hoping to find that all has not been lost in translation. It is that we choose to find relevant only that which can be thus translated.

The most central tenet is an implicit faith in the institution of the market system. The most dominant belief is that interfering with it spells disaster. And yet the rationale behind this comes from a book written 234 years ago that contains virtually no mathematics

There are some who believe economics is a behavioral study, an interaction between individuals and institutions. The Sveridges Riksbank Prize in Economics for 2009, often referred to as the Economics Nobel was handed to Elinor Ostrom and Oliver E. Williamson, the former a professor of political science, the latter a specialist in institutional economics. Maybe there is space for a pluralistic faith.