Economics: The User's Guide

This book, a swift but penetrating introduction to the social science of economics from the veritable iconoclast Ha-Joon Chang, should be compulsory reading for voters and politicians and students and probably most other people. Chang is of the [excellent] opinion that economics, being as it is the shady force that drives global human society, is too important to be left to dubious academics. Widespread public understanding of the principles, arguments, theories and difficulties of economics is essential to a healthy democracy; our daily lives are shaped by economics and the policy decisions informed by it - how can we assent to government actions that we don't even vaguely comprehend for ourselves? In the prologue he puts forward a compelling case for even those who haven't touched a supply/demand diagram* with a bargepole to engage with the dismal science - 95% of which he says is common sense, and which is of course too important to be left to economists.

   His purpose in place, Chang then dives in to explain, in subject-divided chapters covering broad topics:

• a critical look at what economics actually is
• and an overview of how it has changed with the economies it studies, from Adam Smith in 1776 to current day
• followed by a brief history of the world's [mainly] capitalist economy
• then an open-minded insight into the varying methodologies, core theories and models of economics
• and of the economic actors' characteristics, behaviours, and interactions

[then an interlude]

• overview of issues in output, income and happiness
• overview of issues in economic production
• overview of issues in money and financial systems
• overview of issues in inequality and poverty
• overview of issues in work and unemployment
• overview of issues and debates in the role of the state
• final summative look at how we can use economics to improve the world

   The first half is an excellent orientation to economics as a thing, placing it in context of how we understand changing systems and providing insights from which one can begin to question and consider economists' points of view. The second half is an excellent introduction to some of the most hotly-contested-in-the-media important social concerns stemming from economics, which will allow a lay-reader to better engage with debate in such issues.

   The entire book is both a superbly educative primer for someone who has never properly encountered economics before, and a thought-provoking stir-from-ignorance for students of economics who have never been taught or shown (leastways, not in their course) how the subject should really be working. There are many schools of thought, and looking through a different lens or ten every so often is a great way of seeing complex issues more clearly - so why do economics departments (such as mine) focus their curriculum almost exclusively onto Neoclassical? The rational self-interest of economic actors is called into question by a host of empirical findings, but this is still taught as fact - why? How come economic policy is still taught as if it were the scientific deductions from infallible theoretical models, despite dozens of historical examples showing that the world doesn't work quite so neatly? These are questions Chang raises, curiosities he arouses in those both currently engaged with economics and those not; he intends to create a stir of educated shrewdness toward those who would otherwise blindside us with jargon and statistics. And I applaud him for it.**

   One (the only one I can think of without being overly pedantic) criticism I do have is of Chang's style of explanation. Not so much his actual explanatory sections - he writes with a clarity, levity and sensitivity to jargon and numbers; in plain English that makes the whole thing a breeze to read. He does have a habit though of peppering his descriptions with largely-irrelevant pop-culture references which themselves he then over-explains. Once or twice these actually do add to the point he's making or make a concept easier to grasp, but mostly they just seem to be there as unnecessary layman-accessibility window-dressing. I got used to them quickly, as they fit in with his relaxed tone, but it's still an irritating distraction whenever a paragraph-long explanation of a film pops up so he can employ a single short quote that he could have just said in his own words.

   Anyway.

   If you are, were, or will be an economics student; read this book. It won't teach you anything new about the content of your subject, but will teach you a huge amount about its context; it will help you weigh up your maybe-beloved-maybe-behated subject more objectively and healthily. If, as is more likely, you aren't, weren't and won't be an economics student - read it anyway. It's not at all academic so don't be scared off (it really is more of a "user's guide" than an introductory textbook, it's designed for laypeople), and will broaden your understanding of the world immensely, better equipping you to discerningly engage with political, social and business problems.

* The introductory reader will be pleased to hear there are no diagrams in the whole book. There's a few tables and numbers, but all very easily comprehensible in context. Chang is an excellent layman's explainer.

** For those interested in how current campaigns to reform economics syllabuses to something that better reflects a more humbly inquisitive subject, something less  insistent on diagrams as truth and more willing to accept pluralist schools of thought in critical debate - well, here's the facebook group for the Alternative Thinking for Economics Society at Sheffield University (where I be), and the website for Rethinking Economics, an international network of such student groups. They can probably put you in touch with an academic campaigning group near you.