Economics, Finance, Gambling

While for Aristotle, 'Economics' is the study of the management of resources, for Smith, it is a program that aims at the generation of Wealth.  Continuing that trend by formalizing its methods, is Alfred Marshall's Mathematization of Economics, with a shift of focus from Value to Price, and the use of graphs to illustrate how the latter is determined by the relation of Supply and Demand.  As a result, the primary function of Economic models becomes the prediction of Price, a program that becomes fully realized in the prevalent use of complex algorithms for Wall St. investments.  In other words, 'Economics' has now become 'Finance', with the traditional concerns of the former, e. g. an upgrade in the means of product, the availability of raw materials, etc., now subordinate to gainful buying and selling.  Still, whether or not the formulas that represent relevant phenomena are the most accurate ones available, and, more important, whether or not they correspond to any actual regularity of the phenomena, remain open questions.  That openness is especially urgent in the latter question, since if the answer is negative, then 'Finance' is actually 'gambling'.