The only thing they get is the reputation for publishing in a big journal. Maybe they get tenure, more grants because of that.

“They” have done it to you, Buck. AND, THEY’ve managed to convince you that its exactly what you deserve.

The physical/natural world organizes and modulates its activities through what we call Physical Law, a set of rules that appear to restrict what is possible and what is not. Where these Laws originate, and who or what causes them is not known, but that is what scientists study.

Perhaps they are just a physical order we humans impose on reality because it gives us some illusion of understanding and control. Maybe. But at least we see these laws as a logical framework that explains what we perceive around us.

But human economic relations are not matter and energy interacting in space-time, they are entirely due to, and the result of, relationships between human beings and are entirely determined by human thoughts and motives. Economics does not study the physical universe, it hopes to understand relations between sentient creatures, it is all about human psychology, sociology, anthropology, biology and history.

Human economies do exist in a physical universe, they do interact with the world of forces and fields, particles and waves. BUT THEY ARE NOT THE SAME KIND OF THING. Economic principles like “The Law of Supply and Demand” deny this. They attempt to replace the results and causes of human decisions with the stochastic random interactions we see in the physical world. To a certain extent this is possible, if we define or observe situations where the effect of human intelligence is negligible. For example, the behavior of a crowd or traffic on a freeway can be considered the same way we consider the particles in a gas or the flow of fluids in a pipe.

But a drill team or a dance troupe, or an advancing army are not random forces operating under physical principles, they are organized activities directed by conscious thought. They may be constrained by physical laws (a soldier can only march so fast, and a dancer jump so high) but they are a different kind of animal altogether. They are under intelligent control, not by God, but by Men. And that control serves motives and agendas that are not open to, or predictable by, “physical laws”.

So why do we insist on doing this? Why do we feel the need to construct this illusion that we are all helpless and in the unavoidable grip of blind economic forces over which we have no control? Because some CAN control these forces, for their own personal benefit, and they are determined we shouldn’t find out they are doing so.

Yes, in a truly free market, it can be shown that the ratio of supply and demand does determine price. But few markets are truly free, most are vulnerable to some degree of manipulation and control, especially by those who control the means of production, distribution, or communication. And also, this control is not always successful, it is successful enough, often enough, to make its presence known throughout any market system. The role of Economics, as a science, is to obscure the sources of this control so those who apply it can get away with it, and profit mightily. They do this by artificially inflating prices, exploiting their workers, cheating their investors, colluding with their competitors, and polluting the natural environment and by passing the true social costs of these activities as just “the cost of doing business”. And the Economists try to convince us these crimes are inevitable natural processes over which we have no control. The Law of Supply and Demand is not wrong, its just irrelevant.

Everybody wants Something for Nothing (and chicks for free). Employees want to get paid a lot and do as little as possible. Customers want free stuff. Employers want slave labor. Bosses want no competition, investors want enormous returns and zero risk, and no one wants to pay taxes. That’s all you need to know about Economics. And all you need to do to make it work is to make sure no one gets everything they want, all the time. Do not let the people who profit most get to make the rules. The purpose of academic Economics is not scientific, it is ideological. It tells its students “You are not getting screwed by criminals, you are just the victim of impersonal physical forces over which we have no control. “Let the boss do whatever he wants, he knows what’s best for us all.”

And for those who want to be bosses when they grow up, it morally justifies what they want, and neatly explains away what is actually happening to them.

When I was a poor grad student, I’d go to the library and get the previous version of a textbook, but I had to do it fast.

The article I really want to read, I happily pay for, but not thirty dollars. The research that went into it was not paid for by the publisher. Some of it was done through grants from the government. The figures were created by the authors. The formatting is done by the authors. There are journals that you have to pay to submit.

It’s a racket.

https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/3/6/18252322/college-textbooks-cost-expensive-pearson-cengage-mcgraw-hill

They did it to education, they did it to real estate, they did it to medicine,
they did it to credit and they are planning to do it to food.