Blair Fix

Welcome to Economics From the Top Down. I’m Blair Fix, a PhD-trained political economist based in Canada. I’m the author of the book Rethinking Economic Growth Theory from the Biophysical Perspective. You can find my scientific papers here, and the occasional YouTube video here. And you can read my most popular posts here.

In this blog, you’ll find painstaking research about issues that dominate our world. There’s no cutting corners. My posts are full-on science, complete with exhaustive methods and sources. That said, I put an enormous amount of effort into making my writing digestible for the average person.

About me. I’m what you’d call an economic heretic — someone who thinks that mainstream economics is largely ideology in service of the powerful. Rather than pay lip service to dogma, I prefer to follow the evidence. It’s a fun job, but one that makes me a pariah in economics departments. And so I find myself doing crowdfunded science, supported by readers who appreciated my work. On that note, here’s how you can support my research:

What is ‘economics from the top down’?

‘Economics from the top down’ describes my philosophical approach to science, which has two parts.

First, ‘top down’ is a metaphor for hierarchy. I’m fascinated by hierarchy because it is the dominant way that modern humans organize. And yet it’s tragically understudied by economists. My research is trying to change that.

Second, ‘top down’ is a metaphor for big picture thinking. In this blog, I try to connect ideas from all corners of science, be it physics, evolutionary biology, or the social sciences. Some days I succeed. Other days I just confuse myself.

Get in touch

Have something to say? You can contact me here. Or hit me up on Twitter or Mastodon.