Originally, the word economics comes from the word “oikonomos” which is actually a combination of two Greek words ‘oikos” and “nomos”. These two words mean household and law respectively. The term oikonomos refers to the handling of a household. The perception of an economy as a household has really affected how I used to think about economics because of how the two are related. An economy is made up of a leadership structure just like a household which is headed by a father (England & Farkas, 2017). It therefor entails the process of making decisions, division of labor, allocation of scarce resources such as time, making investments in children, and engaging in household production.
An economy and a household shares two major problems which are the increase of human wants and poor allocation of scarce resources. A household is usually keen to assess each and every decision made within the household for the good of the entire household members unlike in an economy where some decisions are unlikely to be assessed and controlled (England & Farkas, 2017). Far from that, a household may lack the aspect of being an economic agent but still be driven by the desire to share emotional attachments.
I strongly support the definition that economics is the management of God’s household so that everything may flourish (Goodstein & Polasky, 2017). According to Ten Have, 2021, God desires that human kind and all his creation flourish altogether. In Christianity, the concept of stewardship teaches us to take good care of someone or something which is entrusted to our care. Another reason for my support, is that the definition directly relates to the Scripture in Genesis when Adam was given the authority to name, manage, and to care for all the creation in the Garden of Eden.
References
England, P., & Farkas, G. (2017). Households, employment, and gender: A social, economic, and demographic view. Routledge.
Goodstein, E. S., & Polasky, S. (2017). Economics and the Environment. John Wiley & Sons.
ten Have, H. (2021). Stewardship. In Dictionary of Global Bioethics (pp. 973-973). Springer, Cham. Web.