About ProperEconomics

The mission

We want to simplify the discussion of economics - and be the one-stop shop for learning it. Every big idea, from the mercantilists to the behavioral economists, explained so your neighbor gets it: plain-English profiles, an interactive timeline, hands-on simulations, and links to the best videos and original texts. Free, no accounts, no paywalls, no tracking.

Where we stand

This site has a point of view, and we'd rather state it than smuggle it: it's grounded in mainstream economics. Markets coordinate through prices, and much of the site - especially the price-signals interactive - is built to show why price signals matter, including where centrally planned economies historically broke down.

That perspective comes with fairness rules we hold ourselves to on every page: exposition before critique, always. Marx gets as fair and accurate a summary of what he actually argued as Friedman does. Critiques cite who makes them. Contested empirical claims are labeled contested. If you think a profile fails that standard, we want to hear about it.

Methodology & sources

Profiles are checked against standard references - the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Encyclopaedia Britannica, and the economists' own works, which we link in full text wherever they're in the public domain (Project Gutenberg, the Online Library of Liberty, the Marxists Internet Archive). Every profile lists its sources under “Their own words” and “Go further.” Portraits are public-domain or openly licensed images from Wikimedia Commons, credited on each page.

The simulations are deliberately simplified teaching models, not forecasts - each one says so, and each one has a text alternative describing what it demonstrates. Future tax data will be sourced from the OECD and the Tax Foundation with a “data as of” year shown in the interface.

Corrections

Found an error - a date, a quote, a mischaracterized argument? Email corrections@propereconomics.com. Substantive corrections are made promptly; we'd rather be right than first.

Who's behind this

ProperEconomics is an independent project by Sam Dawson. It runs on a static site with no backend, which is also why it can promise: no cookies that need a consent banner, no analytics that follow you around, nothing to sign up for.