This is just a smattering of examples over the past few weeks. Increasingly, our debates about -- and our solutions to -- pressing issues such as immigration, budgets and debt are framed in the context of all-powerful economic laws that dictate what is and is not possible. There's just one slight problem: There are no laws of economics.

For sure, many economists and large parts of society believe there are. The high levels of anxiety about deficits and government debt, not just in the United States but throughout the euro zone and much of the world, stem from the belief that if central banks create too much money, it will inevitably lead to inflation. Why? Because the "laws of economics" say the supply of money will cause inflation if overall output stays the same. In the developed world, clearly, there has been an increase in money supply via the Federal Reserve, the Japanese Central Bank and to a lesser extent the European Central Bank, yet growth is minimal everywhere. While there is no statistically discernible inflation as of yet, the "laws" strongly indicate that there soon will be.

Unless, of course, those laws are wrong, or simply not "laws." Some, such as Paul Krugman or other equally strong (but less vociferous) believers in the precepts of John Maynard Keynes, would say inflation isn't increasing because that's what happens in recessions. When demand is depressed, more money only closes that gap between demand and supply. That, too, depends on a basic "laws of economics," that of supply and demand, which is one of the first precepts students of economics learn and one of the most widely disseminated -- if often misunderstood -- principles of economics.

Yet even here, the idea that these are ironclad laws breaks down. So much of economics depends on the theory that we are all "rational actors." Yet as behavioral economists such as Daniel Kahneman have shown, we are rarely rational actors. Patterns of individual behavior are very different from what economic laws assume. People sell when prices are falling, and buy when prices are rising, even though their interests would be served by doing the opposite.

Institutions and states are not much different; they make decisions all the time that do not "maximize their utility." To put it more plainly, they often make decisions based on fear and hope rather than on a rational calculus of what will best serve their interests over the long run. Governments cut spending when they should increase it (austerity in difficult times) and expand spending when they should cut it. Companies often don't invest when they are unclear about the future and business is soft, which is precisely when they should be investing if the goal is to maximize long-term profitability and viability.

The notion that economics is a science with irrefutable laws appeals to economists (who have long tried to elevate the profession out of the realm of observation and description and into the realm of science) and to the widespread human desire for certainty. But even science isn't quite so set, as any good scientist knows. The laws of gravity may be set, until the laws of quantum mechanics throw a wrench. Our ability to measure the world increases, and our understanding of laws evolves.