The missing business case for ending Tuberculosis

August 24, 2026 Leave a comment

Tuberculosis (TB) presents one of the most enduring paradoxes in global health. It is preventable, diagnosable, and curable, yet it remains among the world’s deadliest infectious diseases. Every year, millions of people fall ill, and more than a million lose their lives to a disease that medicine has known how to treat for decades. The burden is concentrated overwhelmingly in the Global South, particularly in countries such as India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, and the Philippines. Yet despite this enormous human and economic cost, TB continues to attract only a fraction of the funding mobilised for many other global health challenges. The question is not whether TB is a public health emergency, but rather why a disease with such a high burden struggles to attract sustained investment.

The answer lies less in epidemiology and more in economics. Global health financing is often driven by a combination of political attention, public visibility, strategic interests, and commercial incentives. Diseases that threaten wealthier populations, generate public fear, or offer lucrative opportunities for innovation tend to attract substantial resources. Tuberculosis does none of these particularly well. It is largely a disease of poverty, affecting populations with limited political influence and weak purchasing power. As a result, the market signals that typically drive investment remain weak, even when the social need is overwhelming.

This disconnect is evident in the global financing landscape. Governments meeting at the United Nations High-Level Meeting on Tuberculosis in 2023 committed to mobilising US$22 billion annually for TB prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and care by 2027, alongside US$5 billion annually for research and development. Yet current financing remains far below these ambitions. Many high-burden countries continue to face significant resource shortages, and funding gaps persist across national TB programmes. Research funding is even more constrained. Global investment in tuberculosis research remains only a fraction of what experts estimate is necessary to develop better diagnostics, shorter treatment regimens, and more effective vaccines. The world has repeatedly declared its intention to end TB, but its financial commitments suggest otherwise.

A major reason for this shortfall is the narrow donor base supporting the global TB response. Unlike some other health sectors that benefit from a broad coalition of governments, foundations, corporations, and private investors, TB relies heavily on a small number of actors. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria (GFTAM) remains the largest external financier of TB programmes worldwide. A handful of bilateral donors and philanthropic organisations account for much of the remaining support. Outside this relatively small circle, engagement is limited. Family foundations, corporate social responsibility programmes, impact investors, and development finance institutions have yet to embrace tuberculosis as a priority issue at scale.

This concentration of funding creates vulnerability. Any reduction in donor commitments, shifts in geopolitical priorities, or fiscal pressures in donor countries can quickly undermine progress. Recent debates around development assistance budgets and declining aid commitments have highlighted the fragility of the current model. The reality is that the global TB response rests on a financial foundation that is both narrow and uncertain.

The deeper challenge, however, is that tuberculosis has never been successfully positioned as an investment opportunity. Unlike cancer therapies, medical technologies, or chronic disease management solutions, TB offers limited prospects for commercial returns. The populations most affected are often served by publicly funded health systems or donor-supported programmes. Pharmaceutical companies face uncertain revenue streams, while investors struggle to identify scalable business models capable of generating attractive financial returns. In a world increasingly shaped by market logic, tuberculosis suffers from a lack of investability.

Yet this perception obscures a much larger economic reality. Tuberculosis may be one of the highest-return investments available in international development. The disease primarily affects people during their most productive years, reducing labour force participation, household earnings, and economic mobility. Children leave school to care for sick relatives. Communities lose workers, caregivers, and local leaders. The economic impact extends far beyond health systems, affecting productivity, human capital formation, and long-term development outcomes. Every case prevented and every patient cured generates benefits that ripple across households, communities, and economies.

The problem is that these returns are largely social rather than financial. The benefits accrue to governments, employers, families, and society as a whole rather than to any single investor. Economists describe this as a classic market failure. The social return on investment is extraordinarily high, but the private return remains relatively low. As a consequence, the market underinvests in solutions despite their obvious public value.

This is precisely why tuberculosis requires a different financing narrative. For decades, the disease has been framed primarily as a public health challenge. While this framing is accurate, it is insufficient. Tuberculosis should also be understood as a development challenge, a labour market challenge, and a human capital challenge. Countries across Asia and Africa are investing heavily in education, skills, entrepreneurship, and economic growth to capitalise on their demographic dividends. Yet the continued prevalence of tuberculosis silently erodes these investments by reducing productivity and weakening workforce participation.

Reframing TB as an economic issue rather than solely a health issue could unlock new sources of capital. Development finance institutions could view TB investments as essential components of economic resilience. Corporate CSR programs could recognise tuberculosis as a workforce and community development issue. Family offices and philanthropists interested in inclusive growth could support interventions that strengthen human capital among vulnerable populations. Impact investors could explore opportunities in diagnostics, digital adherence technologies, and community-based healthcare delivery. Innovative financing mechanisms, including blended finance and outcome-based funding, could help bridge the gap between social value and financial participation.

Such approaches would not replace traditional public health financing, nor should they. Governments must remain the primary funders of national TB responses. However, relying solely on governments, multilateral agencies, and a handful of foundations is unlikely to generate the scale of resources required to end the epidemic. The financing ecosystem must expand, and that expansion will only occur if the narrative changes.

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of tuberculosis is that its persistence is no longer primarily a scientific problem. The tools to diagnose and cure the disease already exist, and innovations are emerging. What remains missing is sufficient investment and political commitment to deploy these solutions at scale. In an age that celebrates technological breakthroughs and billion-dollar innovation ecosystems, the continued burden of a curable disease reflects not a failure of medicine but a failure of financing.The global community has largely treated tuberculosis as a charitable cause. It is time to recognise it as an investment in human productivity, economic resilience, and social stability. Until funders, policymakers, and investors view tuberculosis through this broader lens, the gap between disease burden and financial commitment will persist. The missing business case for ending tuberculosis is not a lack of evidence that the returns are absent.

(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not purport to reflect the views or opinions of any organisation, foundation, CSR, non-profit or others.)

Cover image is generated using AI

First Published on LinkedIn: 26 June 2026

Filed under Opinions, Social Impact Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Economyths

July 20, 2026 Leave a comment

Author: David Orrell | 320 Pages | Genre: Non-Fiction | Publisher: Icon Books | Year: 2012 | My Rating: 8/10

“If economics has an equivalent of Newton’s law of gravity, it is the law of supply and demand.”
― David Orrell, Economyths

Every profession and subject has its myths, like medicine once believed illness was caused by imbalances of bodily humours! Astronomy once believed that Earth sat at the centre of the universe. Economics, despite its mathematical sophistication and Nobel Prizes, is no exception. David Orrell’s Economyths examine some of the stories modern economics tells us and ask whether they still deserve our trust.

What makes this book particularly engaging is that Orrell, a Canadian mathematician, is not writing as an economist defending one school of thought against another. Orrell approaches economics with the curiosity of an outsider and the scepticism of a scientist. He argues that many of the assumptions that underpin mainstream economic thinking are treated as objective truths when they are, in fact, useful stories, simplifications, and sometimes outright myths.

The book systematically dismantles ten such myths. Markets are not always efficient, people are not perfectly rational, money is not neutral, growth is not synonymous with wellbeing, and risk is not always measurable. These ideas may sound obvious after the financial crisis of 2008-09, market bubbles, and widening inequalities of recent decades, but Orrell demonstrates how they are deeply embedded in economic models, policy discussions, and public discussions.

One of the most refreshing aspects of the book is its insistence that economics is not a physics problem. Human societies are messy, emotional, political, and adaptive. Unlike atoms, people change their behaviour when circumstances change. They are influenced by culture, fear, aspiration, power, and relationships. Any attempt to reduce economic life to neat equations inevitably leaves something important out.

As someone working in the social development sector, I found myself reflecting on how often development conversations are shaped by economic assumptions that go unquestioned. We celebrate GDP growth while overlooking ecological degradation. We measure income while ignoring dignity, and optimise for efficiency while neglecting resilience. The book reminded me that the indicators we choose are never neutral, as they shape what we value and what we overlook.

The book encourages intellectual humility and reminds us that economic models are maps, not territories. Useful maps matter, but problems arise when we mistake them for reality itself. Reading Economyths also felt surprisingly relevant beyond economics. In many ways, the book is about the dangers of oversimplification. Whether in public policy, business strategy, or personal life, we often gravitate towards elegant frameworks because complexity is uncomfortable. Reality rarely conforms to tidy narratives, as the world is interconnected, dynamic, and often unpredictable.

The book questions whether economics is ultimately about how societies organise resources to support human development, and then what exactly are we optimising for? Wealth? Growth? Efficiency? Security? Sustainability? Happiness? The answer matters because different goals produce different systems and different outcomes.

More than a critique of economic theory, Economyths is a reminder that every model reflects a set of values. The challenge is not to abandon economics but to recognise its limits, question its assumptions, and remain open to perspectives that better capture the complexity of human life. I finished the book with greater scepticism toward economic certainties but also with greater appreciation for the importance of asking better questions. In a world increasingly driven by metrics, forecasts, and optimisation, that may be one of the most valuable lessons of all. Economyths is a thoughtful and provocative read for anyone interested in economics, public policy, development, business, or simply understanding the assumptions that quietly shape modern society.

Filed under Books Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Why can’t you have it all

April 20, 2026 2 Comments

We grew up on a promise that if we worked hard enough, planned carefully, and optimised intelligently, we could have it all. Modern culture reinforces this belief on a daily basis that we can have a successful career, a loving family, financial security, good health, lasting friendships, purpose, and inner peace. Social media displays curated snapshots of people who appear to be excelling simultaneously in every domain of life. We have been hearing since our childhoods that balance is achievable with the right morning routine of ‘early to bed, early to rise, makes a person healthy, wealthy and wise’. Yet beneath this narrative lies a simple truth that you can’t have it all, at least not all at once, not at full intensity, and certainly not without significant trade-offs. The reason is not a lack of ambition or discipline, but scarcity, which is the most fundamental principle governing both economics and human life.

Scarcity is often associated with money, but today, the scarcest resources are time, energy, and attention. Every human being, regardless of wealth or status, receives the same twenty-four hours each day, making time the most democratic of all constraints. No one can accumulate unused hours or borrow from the future without cost. We speak casually about ‘managing time,’ yet time itself cannot be managed as it flows at a constant pace. Every hour invested in one activity is an hour unavailable for another, managing only the choices between time availability. The professional who chooses to work late trades time that could have been spent with family. The parent who prioritises caring for children may delay career advancement. The entrepreneur who pours weekends into building a venture sacrifices leisure and rest. These trade-offs are often invisible in the moment, but they accumulate quietly over the years. Life does not unfold in parallel tracks where everything progresses simultaneously. It unfolds sequentially, through seasons that demand different commitments.

If time is the vehicle of life, energy is its fuel. Two individuals may possess identical schedules yet operate at dramatically different capacities. Energy fluctuates with sleep, nutrition, stress, age, emotional well-being, and sense of purpose. Modern ambition frequently assumes that energy can be summoned indefinitely through willpower, caffeine/nicotine, or motivation. But biology imposes limits, cognitive fatigue reduces clarity and creativity, and emotional exhaustion diminishes patience and empathy, while physical depletion erodes resilience. Burnout is not a failure of time management but is the inevitable consequence of sustained energy misallocation. Many high achievers discover that even when their calendars appear optimised, their internal reserves are depleted. They attempt to excel in multiple demanding roles of being a professional, parent, partner, and friend simultaneously without acknowledging that each role draws from the same finite energy pool. Over time, the system protests, sleep suffers, health declines, and relationships strain. The pursuit of ‘having it all’ quietly converts into chronic exhaustion.

Perhaps more than time or energy, attention defines scarcity. In the digital age, attention has become a commodity aggressively competed for by corporations and platforms. Notifications, news feeds, emails, and endless streams of content fragment focus into micro-intervals, with us being connected to everything and fully present in almost nothing. Attention determines lived experience; whatever captures our focus becomes our reality. When attention is scattered across dozens of stimuli each hour, depth disappears, and conversations become half-engaged exchanges. Work becomes interrupted bursts of activity, and leisure becomes simultaneous scrolling. Creativity, which requires uninterrupted thought, struggles to emerge in fragmented environments. Intimacy, which depends on sustained presence, weakens under constant distraction. The desire to ‘have it all’ often leads to diluted attention spread thinly across many domains, leaving none fully nourished.

Technology reinforces the thinking that multitasking is efficient, but cognitive science consistently demonstrates the cost of task switching. Each shift of focus consumes mental energy and reduces performance quality. We may believe we are building a career, nurturing relationships, maintaining fitness, staying informed, and cultivating a side project all at once. We may be engaging partially in each, achieving adequacy but rarely excellence. To choose one path intensely is to decline others, at least temporarily, as excellence is exclusive by nature and rewards those willing to concentrate rather than diversify endlessly.

The pressure to ‘have it all’ is further amplified by comparison, especially as digital platforms present curated narratives where achievements are showcased without context. We compare our daily struggles to others’ peak moments and conclude that we are falling behind. Yet every visible success rests upon invisible trade-offs. The CxO with rapid career progression may have sacrificed personal time. The entrepreneur enjoying autonomy may endure financial uncertainty. The individual projecting calm online may be filled with anxiety privately. Role overload has become a defining feature of modern adulthood. We inflate our identities, attempting to be accomplished professionals, devoted family members, socially conscious citizens, physically fit individuals, and culturally relevant participants all at once. Without conscious prioritisation, this multiplicity breeds internal conflict.

Trade-offs are not signs of failure but are expressions of values. Every yes carries an implicit no. When we resist acknowledging trade-offs, we drift into reactive living, responding to emails, obligations, and external demands rather than intentional priorities. Economics teaches that scarce resources must be allocated toward what yields the highest perceived value. The same principle applies to life, and time, energy, and attention must be directed consciously. Without deliberate allocation, they will be consumed by urgency rather than importance. The question shifts from ‘Can I have it all?’ to ‘What is worth the cost?’ Clarity transforms scarcity from limitation into guidance.

Fragmentation carries hidden consequences as shallow engagement reduces satisfaction. When attention is dispersed continuously, creativity declines and emotional presence weakens. We may touch many aspects of life but rarely hold any deeply. The paradox of modern abundance is experiential thinness. Surrounded by options, we struggle to experience fullness. Having everything available does not equate to inhabiting it meaningfully.

Perhaps the problem lies in our definition of ‘having it all.’ If it means maximising every measurable domain simultaneously, which is unattainable. But if it means living in alignment with consciously chosen priorities, it becomes possible. Fulfilment may not require expansion in all directions, but it does require coherence. When time, energy, and attention align with core values, life feels integrated even if certain ambitions are deferred. We may not achieve extreme wealth, recognition, and perfect physical condition simultaneously, yet we may experience deep contentment through purposeful work, loving relationships, and sustainable health practices.

Designing a life within scarcity requires discipline and ruthless prioritisation to clarify which domains deserve peak focus. Protecting energy through sleep, movement, and boundaries preserves capacity. Practising attention hygiene, limiting digital intrusion and creating focused blocks enhances depth. Strategic neglect acknowledges that some areas will temporarily receive minimal investment without inducing guilt. Redefining success as alignment rather than accumulation reduces external pressure. These practices do not eliminate scarcity, but teaches us to navigate it wisely.

There is liberation in accepting limits, where comparison loses some of its sting when we acknowledge that no human can optimise every dimension simultaneously. Even the most accomplished individuals operate within constraints. Everyone trades something. The artist may trade financial stability for creative freedom. The corporate leader may trade time for influence. The activist may trade comfort for impact. The parent may trade professional acceleration for presence. No path is without a cost, and recognising this universal truth fosters humility and self-compassion.

Ultimately, the longing to ‘have it all’ often masks deeper desires for security, significance, love, belonging, or meaning. When these needs are identified clearly, excess pursuits lose their urgency. One may discover that respect matters more than status, intimacy more than visibility, and contribution more than accumulation. You cannot maximise career, family, health, wealth, friendships, and personal growth simultaneously at peak intensity. Human existence is bounded by time, powered by finite energy, and shaped by limited attention. Yet within those boundaries lies possibility. You may not have everything, but you can choose what receives your best. In a culture obsessed with expansion, the rare act is deliberately selecting what truly matters and committing to it fully. You cannot have it all, but you can have enough, deeply experienced and consciously chosen. And in the arithmetic of a scarce world, that may be the closest approximation of abundance available to us.

(Cover image is generate using AI)

Filed under Opinions Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Paradox of Choice

March 16, 2026 Leave a comment

Today when we can open a trading account in minutes using multitudes of apps on our smartphones, start a side hustle overnight, and invest in everything from mutual funds to crypto, it’s easy to assume that greater financial freedom leads to greater happiness and security. After all, classical economics taught us that more choice expands utility and that having more options allows individuals to maximise satisfaction according to their preferences.

However, paradoxically, the modern reality is quite the opposite. The very availability of multiple financial choices, from investment platforms and passive income streams to flexible careers, has made us more anxious, instead of more secure. This tension between freedom and fatigue is at the core of what psychologist Barry Schwartz famously called The Paradox of Choice, that when faced with too many options, people often experience paralysis, regret, and dissatisfaction. In the financial world, this paradox is amplified by behavioural biases, social pressures, and the illusion of control. The promise of ‘financial freedom’ is increasingly becoming a source of stress and decision fatigue.

At the core of neoclassical economics lies the assumption of the rational consumer, an individual seeking to maximise utility given available resources and information. In theory, having more options allows a person to reach a higher indifference curve, implying greater satisfaction. However, this theory assumes two conditions of perfect information and bounded rationality that modern life rarely satisfies. In reality, our capacity to process and evaluate financial information is limited. According to Nobel laureate Herbert Simon, bounded rationality doesn’t really exist as people settle for ‘good enough’ decisions given cognitive constraints.

When applied to financial decisions of choosing mutual funds, stocks, insurance policies, side gigs, or career shifts, the cognitive load of evaluating multiple dimensions (returns, risk, time, opportunity cost, tax impact, and ethical values) becomes overwhelming. And, eventually, this results in anxiety, procrastination, and in many cases, decision paralysis.

Behavioural economics has consistently challenged the rational agent model by introducing psychological realism. The ‘overchoice effect,’ as demonstrated in Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper’s famous “jam experiment” (formally published in 2000), found that too many options reduce the likelihood of making any decision at all, instead of motivating consumers.

Translating this into financial behaviour, investors today face an explosion of options:

  • Thousands of mutual funds and ETFs, each claiming a unique advantage
  • Multiple investment apps with different algorithms and influencers
  • Gig economy trends from freelancing to affiliate marketing to AI content creation
  • Cryptocurrencies, NFTs, index funds, and more

Every new choice promises empowerment but demands research, comparison, and ongoing monitoring. Instead of creating financial autonomy, it traps individuals in a constant state of vigilance, which is the fear of missing out (FOMO) combined with the fear of making the wrong call (FOBO). The result is not empowerment but exhaustion or decision fatigue. Each micro-decision (Should I invest this month? Which stock to pick? Should I switch careers or start a podcast?) depletes mental energy. Over time, this erodes not just financial confidence but emotional well-being.

Daniel Kahneman’s Prospect Theory helps explain why financial freedom can be anxiety-inducing. The theory suggests that people are loss averse as the pain of losing 100 rupees is psychologically twice as intense as the pleasure of gaining the same amount. In an environment overflowing with options, every choice implies multiple foregone alternatives. Every decision carries not just the risk of loss but the weight of opportunity cost. This constant mental simulation of missed opportunities amplifies anticipated regret, a core feature of financial anxiety. Ironically, the very flexibility that defines financial freedom multiplies the avenues for potential regret. The ideology of ‘financial freedom’ is closely tied to neoliberal individualism, which believes that individuals are solely responsible for their economic success or failure. The gig economy and self-investing culture are framed as the democratisation of opportunity, but in practice, they shift systemic risk from institutions to individuals.

In the past, financial security was linked to stable employment, pensions, and collective risk-sharing. Today’s economy glorifies personal agency: ‘be your own boss,’ ‘invest smart, ‘create multiple income streams.’ This narrative sounds empowering, but simultaneously imposes a moral burden that if you are not financially thriving, it’s because you didn’t hustle enough or make the right investments. Digital technology has magnified this paradox. Social media and fintech apps blur the line between information and manipulation. Platforms gamify investing (colourful charts, animations, notifications) to keep users engaged. Influencers promote ‘hot’ stocks on popular social media or ‘passive income secrets’ that fuel financial comparison and insecurity.

The attention economy transforms finance from a domain of prudence into one of performance. People aren’t just managing money, instead they’re managing an identity. The psychological cost is immense and full of information overload, impulsive trading, and the erosion of long-term financial discipline. It is a proven fact that dopamine spikes from small gains, mimicking gambling behaviour, creating cycles of thrill and despair. 

This anxiety can be visualised through diminishing marginal utility of choice. Initially, increasing options enhances utility as people enjoy flexibility. However, beyond a threshold, the utility curve flattens and then declines as cognitive costs exceed the benefits of freedom.

Mathematically, if U = f(C) represents utility derived from choice (C), then

            for small C, dU/dC > 0 (freedom increases satisfaction),

            for large C, dU/dC < 0 (freedom decreases satisfaction).

This inverted-U relationship illustrates that optimal well-being arises not from maximum freedom but from structured freedom, where choice is curated, meaningful, and bounded by context or expertise.

The paradox of financial choice reveals a deeper human truth that enjoying freedom without boundaries can be as imprisoning as constraint. The promise of financial autonomy has mutated into an obligation to constantly optimise, compare, and compete. It seems like we are drowning in option value as every unrealised choice weighs on our psyche. We are victims of decision fatigue as we are living through the privatisation of financial risk disguised as empowerment. True financial freedom, therefore, is not about multiplying options but mastering them and knowing when to choose, when to stop, and when to rest. As with most paradoxes, the solution lies in the balance of the freedom to simplify, ignore, and define what ‘enough’ means in a world that always demands more.

(Cover image is generated using AI)

Filed under Econ Dev Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

Economics is not about money

March 2, 2026 Leave a comment

Most people think economics is about money, but it’s not. If it were, your life would make far more sense than it does. Economics begins much earlier than money, as it starts the moment you realise that you cannot have everything at once. You cannot have a high-paying job and abundant free time. You cannot have absolute security and complete freedom. You cannot say yes to every opportunity without saying no to something else. Economics is not about how much you earn, but what you give up for it. That invisible sacrifice, ‘what you could have done but didn’t, ‘ is the true currency of economics. We seldom talk about it, but it quietly shapes every decision we make.

Think of any random normal day of your life. You wake up earlier than you would like because traffic can be unpredictable. You scroll your phone while sipping morning tea, not because you want to, but because silence feels uncomfortable. You choose a quicker breakfast over a healthier one. You delay a difficult conversation at home. You tolerate a job you dislike because it pays the bills. None of these choices feels ‘economic.’ They feel personal. But every choice that you make is a trade-off. When you choose speed over health, comfort over honesty, income over meaning, you are doing economics. You are allocating scarce resources, such as time, energy, attention, and emotional capacity. Money enters later, as a convenient measuring tool, but the logic is already at work.

In India and several other similar developing countries, we live in a constant state of trade-offs. Long commutes to work steal hours from families. Overcrowded classrooms dilute learning. Low wages are compensated by the promise of stability. We accept these compromises so routinely that they stop feeling like choices at all and begin to feel like fate. Economics helps us see that they are not.

No matter how rich or poor you are, time is always in limited supply. A billionaire has the same twenty-four hours as a daily-wage worker. A student in Delhi and a farmer in Bihar both face limited days and uncertain futures. What differs is not scarcity itself but how it is managed and who bears its cost. Scarcity forces choices, which create trade-offs, and ultimately, trade-offs determine winners and losers.

If economics is about trade-offs, then the most important question is not about what we want, but what we are willing to give up, and who decides? This is where economics moves from being a personal lens to a political one. In democracies, these decisions are meant to be collective, negotiated through debate, budgets, and votes.  When a government invests heavily in urban infrastructure but underfunds primary healthcare, it is not simply prioritising growth over welfare, but is choosing whose time matters. The commuter stuck in traffic benefits from a flyover, while the woman who walks kilometres to a hospital pays the price. These outcomes are often defended as efficiency, but efficiency for whom is rarely asked. Economics reminds us that aggregate gains can coexist with deep individual losses, and that averages hide pain as effectively as they reveal progress.

This way of thinking also changes how we view success. Growth figures, income levels, and productivity rates dominate economic conversations, but they measure outputs, not experiences. A country can grow richer while its people grow more anxious. A company can become more profitable while its workers burn out. A household can earn more while spending less time together. When we ignore these costs, we risk building systems that look successful on paper but feel unbearable in practice. 

There is also a moral dimension to trade-offs that markets alone cannot resolve. Markets are excellent at responding to purchasing power, but often silent about need. They reward those who can pay, not those who suffer most. That is why leaving everything to ‘the market’ is itself a choice, one that often shifts costs onto the weakest. When clean air, safe housing, or quality education are treated purely as commodities, inequality is not an accident, but it is an outcome. Economics helps us see that fairness is not automatic, but must be designed.

This is the uncomfortable truth economics insists on. Every policy, every system, every personal decision benefits one and burdens someone else. There is no free lunch, only cleverly hidden bills. When a city prioritises flyovers over footpaths, it chooses cars over pedestrians. When an education system rewards rote learning, it sacrifices curiosity. When a company celebrates long working hours, it quietly taxes family life. These are not moral failures but are economic decisions. However, pretending they are natural or inevitable prevents us from questioning them.

The most dangerous costs are the ones we don’t notice. When an app is free, we assume there is no price. When a government scheme promises something for nothing, we rarely ask who is paying. When a product is cheap, we celebrate efficiency, not exploitation. But every benefit has a cost. If you don’t see it, it’s probably being paid by someone else, or even by your future self. Cheap food often means underpaid farmers. Free social media means monetised attention. Low taxes can mean broken public services. Fast growth can mean polluted air and exhausted bodies. Economics trains us to ask an unfashionable question: compared to what? Without this lens, we mistake convenience for progress.

At an individual level, thinking economically can be liberating. It replaces guilt with clarity. If you understand that your exhaustion is not just a personal failure but the result of incentives that reward overwork, you can begin to question those incentives. If you recognise that your inability to save is linked to rising living costs rather than laziness, you can demand better policies instead of harsher self-judgment. Awareness does not eliminate constraints, but it changes how we respond to them.

One of the quiet cruelties of modern life is how easily individuals are blamed for structural problems. If you are unemployed, you are told to upskill. If you are stressed, you are told to meditate. If you are poor, you are told to work harder. But you are rarely told to examine the system that made these outcomes likely in the first place. Economics reveals patterns where we see only personal failure. It shows how incentives shape behaviour, how power hides behind ‘market outcomes,’ and how rules written long ago continue to decide who gets ahead today. This does not absolve individuals of responsibility, but it does bring honesty to the conversation. You cannot fix what you refuse to name.

Economics is not about predicting stock prices or defending ideologies, but is more about clarity. About seeing how choices are shaped, how costs are distributed, and how power operates quietly through everyday decisions. You do not need equations to think economically. Instead, you need curiosity and courage to ask uncomfortable questions. And you need the humility to accept that every solution creates new problems. Once you start seeing life this way, it becomes difficult to unsee. You begin to notice the price tags on things that never claimed to be for sale, like time, trust, dignity, and attention. That awareness does not make life easier, but it makes it more honest. And honesty, in the long run, is the most valuable currency we have. When we see costs clearly, we can finally argue about whether they are worth paying, and whether the bill is being shared fairly. India is a masterclass in everyday economics. Families choose stability over passion, young people choose migration over belonging, villages trade environment for employment, and women trade ambition for safety. These are not random decisions but often are rational responses to constraints. When options are limited, even painful choices begin to make sense. Understanding this limitation is empowerment.

(Cover image is generated using AI)

Filed under Opinions Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

← Older posts