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To be fair, I don't recall anyone of import advocating that economics is a natural science. Look at any university course catalogue and it is wedged pretty firmly in the social science department where it should be, along with the other fake sciences like psychology and sociology (though I would have to call it a continuum of fake, with clinical psychology on the "closer to real" end and sociology on the "just making junk up" end).

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Very true. That's a problem that in principle can be fixed, though. Your "fake" sciences can in principle all be approached using the scientific method. They are actually real sciences. It's just a portion of the practitioners that hurt their credibility. My guess is that it's the inherently complex subject matter that allows politically-charged crackpots and other non-scientists to squeeze their way in and call themselves scientists.

Unfortunately, I suspect that there is too much incentive to "make observation fit one's expectations" in these fields. Conversely, what purpose does non-scientific quantum physics serve? Beyond weaseling more research money, pretty much nothing. But making economics and sociology say things that aren't held up by observation can, and most often does, lead to vast political and social change.

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