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Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics[1] is a superb book on the subject. It's lengthy but very readable, especially for its real-world examples. Particularly excelle
by davidp 9y ago
Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics[1] is a superb book on the subject. It's lengthy but very readable, especially for its real-world examples. Particularly excellent are the explanations for the unintended consequences from price controls.
The first edition came out many years ago. Since then, the world has provided a few case studies on the matter. For example we've been been watching the slow-motion train wreck that is Venezuela's economy, as first Chavez and then Maduro gripped prices tighter and tighter. The horrible consequences Sowell describes have shown up inexorably, predictably, just like clockwork. It's grim to watch; but my point is that his book and other writings give a real intuition about economic fundamentals that you can see every day.
[1]: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Basic_Economics_(Thomas_Sowell) https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Basic_Economics_(Thomas_Sowell...
- owebmaster 9y ago> Since then, the world has provided a few case studies on the matter. I just want to point that the world has provided a lot more case studies on the matters of Karl Marx economical bibliography.
- karanbhangui 9y agoBig fan of Sowell's books. As a next step, for a more analytical treatment: http://www.mcafee.cc/Introecon/ http://www.mcafee.cc/Introecon/
- davidw 9y agoThat's a good one. A lot of 'free' econ materials on the internet are there to Push An Agenda and often in a not very subtle way. That "intro to econ" book seems fairly neutral in comparison and more like a standard introductory text.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- littlestymaar 9y agoI don't think there is any «neutral» way to talk about economics. At the lowest level, how you model the human behavior is not neutral : if you think of humans as rational beings trying to maximize their well-being, you'll talk about price, market and competition : you're describing the world in the classical / liberal point of view. On the other hand, if you describe them as social creatures under the influence of social forces, you'll talk about wage slavery, alienation and class conflict and you'll see the world in a socialist point of view. Both aspect are interesting to learn about but none of them is neutral and they both come with a bunch a ideology. Even if the first usually hides it, pretending to be a neutral and rigorous analysis of the world. Introduction to Economic Analysis is clearly in this category.
- amelius 9y agoThen a neutral approach would cover both viewpoints (?)
- JumpCrisscross 9y agoNo, it would cover the models that work. The reason any respectable economics text starts with frictionless markets of rational and then immediately talks about market failure is because to recognise the latter as a divergence you need the former as a baseline. Looking at things and asking "how does this make you feel" isn't scientific. Learning models that, while not great have shown some predictive power, is better. Economics pedagogy is far from perfect, but backing into the model by studying deviations seems like the wrong way to do it.
- littlestymaar 9y ago> Learning models that, while not great have shown some predictive power, is better. The problem is that theses models have a predictive power approximatly the same that Aristotle Law of free fall. They describe a world that seems intuitive but is totally wrong in most cases. For instance the diminishing return hypothesis comes from Ricardo's studies of agriculture in the UK. Since then this hypothesis is almost always used when studying the law and supply and demand. The problem is : it's almost always false unless you're harvesting a natural ressource. Teaching a model which is known to be a pretty terrible representation of reality is not a good thing because it gives a false sense of understanding, which is dangerous from a democratic point of view.
- djrobstep 9y agoSowell's book is ideological right wing garbage disguised as Econ 101.
- nkarpov 9y agoTo borrow the spirit of your impassioned comment - could someone point to a criticism of Sowell's work/ideas?
- grzm 9y agoI find Wikipedia a useful jumping off point in general to get a sense of common criticisms on a variety of topics. In this case, I'd start in the Reception section of Sowell's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sowell#Reception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sowell#Reception
- jnordwick 9y agoI didn't see anything referring to EIOL. Can you point to something more specific than just a general critique of Sowell?
- grzm 9y agoAre you referring to Economics in One Lesson? It looks like that's Henry Hazlitt, not Sowell. (Am I missing something?) It looks like DeLong has some criticism of that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_in_One_Lesson#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_in_One_Lesson#Critic... Just to be clear, I'm not an expert on any of this. I just popped in to provide a pointer I've found useful in learning about a topic when I'm not sure where to start. Similarly here, I just applied a bit of search-fu.
- djrobstep 9y agoThe problems with capitalism are widely documented. Here for instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_capitalism
- crdoconnor 9y ago>The first edition came out many years ago. Since then, the world has provided a few case studies on the matter. For example we've been been watching the slow-motion train wreck that is Venezuela's economy Venezuela's economy already went through this period in the late 80s/early 90s. The collapse of oil prices and its subsequent effect on the economy and the government's ability to maintain services is partly what led to an infuriated populace electing Chavez.