>>11654507>>11656838Pre-modern Economics was just a bunch of philosophy.
Modern Economics can be broken down into jerking-off on mathematics, and empirical micro.
Empirical micro is a mix of psychology studies on slightly larger scale, with same game theory mixed in (while explicitly testing how well that game theory holds up). It's pretty okay and probably the closest to what Economics should be. Anything that uses game theory game theory for market design, and analyzes "what's the most pathological thing an agent could do in this system" (as opposed to what would a rational agent do in this system) as a means to designing a market also gets a pass.
The former jerking-off on mathematics is where you have Economists role-playing as physicists, acting as philosophers, while trying to make finance bucks and selling the "credibility" to the highest bidder who funds their departments, buys their chairs, and pays their consulting fees go legitimize their desired economic policies or go on TV and push the views they're paid to push.
