One of Friedrich Hayek's contemporaries defined economics as the 'science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses'. It's this idea of a generalised study of human behaviour under conditions of scarcity that has been responsible for the economists' intellectual imperialism. Because if you announce that you're the experts on human beings when they have to choose between different priorities under conditions of scarce resources, when aren't resources scarce? When don't people have to choose between different things they want?

— The Unaccountability Machine by Dan Davies (Page 143)