system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: How does economics remain reliable even though it was founded on the principle of the rational consumer?

Obviously now we have things like behavioral economics that try and negate this problem by adapting to human behavior, but how did the field have any accuracy and credibility before that? The idea that all consumer decisions are rational is absurd, especially considering how capitalism functions and the fact that irrationality can cause both economic successes and downfalls.
gpt
The axioms that constitute rationality:

* given a choice between A and B, a person can say which they prefer or if they are indifferent

* if they prefer A to B and B to  C,  they prefer A to C 

Are not actually all that demanding. They are fulfilled in the vast majority of decision making contexts or are close enough to fulfilled that it doesn't matter.

If you want to poke a bigger hole in the conclusions of most economic models, ask their authors' about how realistic their assumptions about information are.

That said, an imperfect model is vastly preferable to no model. Economic models have been vastly important in correctly justifying countless policies.