I was hoping that somebody had read something that they could enthusiastically recommend to their fellow Flutherites (as would be the case if we were recommending vampire novels). Unfortunately, I am afraid that the offerings above will add anything useful to one’s understanding of economics.
I’m afraid that the dense and ponderous Das Kapital is to antiquated to be of much use. Many of its central ideas (like the labor theory of value) have been discredited and pose traps for the unwary. Freakonomics, and Super Freakonomics, while amusing and readable, are mostly counter-intuitive vignettes based on some aspect of economic reasoning being turned on its head; they do not provide anything like a basic education in economics. All the rest of the offerings above are from a single discredited school of economics; namely, neo-liberalism.
Neo-liberalism (not to be confused with political Liberalism) is also known as “free market,” “trickle down,” “neo-con,” “laissez fair,” or the Chicago School of economics, after Milton Friedman who taught a virtual army of young economists, including—Krugman, Landsburg, and Hazzlit, et al. This is essentially the same “let er rip” economics that led to the Great Crash of 1929 and the anti-government, anti-taxation, anti-regulation, “conservative” ideology that has dominated Republican economic policy from Reagan to Bush II—policies that led directly to the great crash of 2009.
Everywhere that neo-liberal economics has been tried—Chile, Peru, Argentina, Brazil, etc.—it has been a complete and unmitigated disaster. Naomi Klein in The Shock Doctrine documents how the attempt to implement completely free markets (despite government-sponsored death squads “disappearing” any and all opposition) only succeeded in enriching a tiny elite at the top, while seriously impoverishing the rest of the country. But this is more of an economic history than a book on economics per se.
For a good, easy, brief, math-free introduction to economics, I recommend Thurow and Heilbroner’s Economics Explained or Thurow’s Zero-Sum Society.
Anything by Robert Kuttner, such as The Economic Illusion, which presents an alternative (or antidote) to neo-liberalism, Everything for Sale, and his latest book, The Squandering of America, which is about the capture of democracy by special interests, the resulting polarization of wealth, the deindustrialization of America, and why ordinary people need to rise up and take their government back from corporate interests.
William Greider is another great populist explainer of economics whose books include:
Who Will Tell the People, which I think tells you pretty much everything you need to know in order to be able to vote in your own economic interest, and to be able to evaluate the economic policies that politicians propose. His 900+ page Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country tells you everything you need to know about where money comes from, and how the money supply (monetary policy) is managed, and the history of our monetary policy (up to Volker). This is essential reading if you think Ron Paul’s ideas are interesting (i.e., his idea about making the Fed more transparent has merit, but his hard currency proposals would be disastrous). And his latest book, Come Home, America: The Rise and Fall (and Redeeming Promise) of Our Country looks like it is going to be my next economics book.
Also, John Kenneth Galbraith’s works are almost all timeless classics. I found The New Industrial State an excellent exposition of how technology fits into the picture, and how we need to have democratic participation in deciding our industrial policy, rather than leaving it to corporations (which have shipped our industrial base off to Mexico and China).
If people don’t educate themselves about economics, they can’t defend themselves from the the propaganda of special interests, the pandering and tomfoolery of politicians. Given the recent Supreme Court decision to allow corporations to make unlimited political contributions, we are about to be deluged with economic propaganda and self-serving nonsense like you have never seen. I don’t think people realize just how serious the situation is. If we don’t educate ourselves about economics, we risk losing everything—our country, our prosperity, and even our homes. If you don’t understand why, it’s because you don’t know enough about economics.
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