The dismal science

"[2] Economics was "dismal" in "find[ing] the secret of this Universe in 'supply and demand', and reducing the duty of human governors to that of letting men alone" or personal freedom.

[3] Carlyle did not originally coin the phrase "dismal science" as a response to the economically influential theories of Thomas Malthus, who predicted that starvation would inevitably result as projected population growth exceeded the rate of increase in the food supply.

[7] According to Humphry House:[8] Carlyle's phrase, "the dismal science", has been so often quoted, that there is a risk of thinking that the opinion behind it was confined to him and his followers; but the opinion was widespread, and thought to be a justifiable inference from the works of the economists: "No one", said J. E. Cairnes, "can have studied political economy in the works of its earlier cultivators without being struck with the dreariness of the outlook which, in the main, it discloses for the human race.

It is not merely that the Malthusian principle of population and the doctrine that wages must normally and necessarily fall to the minimum point were gladly accepted by wicked exploiters as the justification of their profits; but thousands whose immediate interests were not touched by these beliefs found it difficult to avoid them.

[9] In modern discourse, the term can refer to the fact that economics invariably involves the study of scarcity, conflict, and trade-offs, leading to conclusions and policy recommendations that may highlight limitations and negative aspects of human behavior and societal organization.