‘We must be good to the economy if we want the economy to be good to us.’ This is the warning that austerity hawks whisper in our ears daily. To be clear, ‘being good to the economy’ involves cutting useful social organs, such as welfare and education, together with abandoning the unemployed.

The past three years have shown that, whichever way you look at it, this social sacrifice has been useless. After all, how is the machine supposed to perform better without its cogs and transmission-belts? But what we must really question is how it became generally acceptable to sacrifice so much in view of an expression as vague as ‘the economy.’

Certainly, ‘the economy’ holds some kind of general meaning in public consciousness. The expression ignites images of the production and trade of goods and services. However, beyond this, we should be allowed our own interpretation. Specifically, each of us should be encouraged to form an independent opinion on what constitutes a ‘good economy.’

Instead, dishonest academics and politicians promote the idea that there is one ‘true’ economy and maintain that the criteria they use to evaluate it are undisputable.

There is no attempt to clearly explain ‘the economy’ to the general public. On the contrary, efforts are made to render it remote and mysterious, notably through the use of unnecessary and flaunty math. Friedman’s work, which sought to model the economy through regression analysis, is a famous example that spawned a long-lasting legacy.

Recent pro-austerity theories are, generally, clearly outlined. Nevertheless, they rely on what has been the gradual creation of a separate and impenetrable category called ‘the economy.’ This whimsical, god-like entity has allowed ‘experts’ to justify social sacrifice through misplaced and simplistic logics. Aztec priests convinced their people that human sacrifices appeased the Gods. Similarly, austerity hawks convinced us that debt angers ‘the economy,’ and feeding it whole sections of the state helps cajole it back into motion.

It is senseless to sacrifice our political goals in view of ‘the economy,’ because ‘the economy’ is, itself, a political project. Behind every economic definition and theory lie political considerations. In orthodox economics, profit is always deemed positive, regardless of whether it is derived from harmful and unhelpful activities. Moreover, national turnover is the primary measure of good economic performance, so that little attention is paid to how wealth is distributed. Hence, even at a quick glance, the parallel between ‘the economy’ and a classist and consumerist world-view is apparent.

Nonetheless, our Politicians constantly trick us into believing that ‘the economy’ is apolitical. Cameron has said, accusing his rivals, ‘They are putting the politics before the economics!’ Here ‘economics’ refers to a system that stands indifferent to poverty—as long as it is out of the way—and pollutes and destroys our social environment. This is because it privileges profit above anything else. But none of this comes to mind and the sentence acquires a sort of common-sense, axiomatic status.

We should work to dispel the myth of apolitical economics. For instance, Carrick-Hagenbarth and Epstein wrote an article (Cambridge Journal of Economics, Vol. 36, Issue 1) that establishes concrete links between the theories advanced by many pro-austerity academics and their personal financial interests. This sheds light on how easily producing knowledge about economics can become an instrument for the few.

Politics is often defined as who gets what, how and why. In our society, ‘the economy’ is what determines each of these questions. We must take back control over what immediately affects us and reflect on what’s good for us, not profit.