Why Economics Is Really Called ‘the Dismal Science’: The (not-so-dismal) origin myth of a ubiquitous term

11 Apr 2025 1 Comment

by Jim Rose in history of economic thought

By Derek Thompson of The Atlantic Monthly. From 2013.  “The story goes like this: Thomas Carlyle, a Scottish writer and philosopher, called economics “the dismal science” in reference to Thomas Malthus, that lugubrious economist who claimed humanity was trapped in a world where population growth would always strain natural resources and bring widespread misery. Dismal,…

Why Economics Is Really Called ‘the Dismal Science’: The (not-so-dismal) origin myth of a ubiquitous term

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