I liked this comment posted on the blog this morning from a person who I know who uses the pseudonym Tony_B:
Here's an idea worth considering. What's a top ten of books or authors to recommend for a modern education in economics, power, politics and finance? Easy, entertaining and imparting the ‘education' not forthcoming in our schools, universities and media.
My starter, just to catch up with the myth makers and to enjoy, is;
1. Yuval Noah Harari: i) ‘Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind' and ii) ‘Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow'
I'm reading Homo Deus now, great stuff. There is some hand waving and brevity, but Harari's work is a compendium of ideas and ‘facts'.
Thiughts anyone?
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I rather like
Economics: The Users Guide, Ha-Joon Chang, Pelican published 2014.
The writer is I think a Harvard professor who nonetheless writes about economics in simple terms and refuses to accept the Neoliberal defeatist consensus of now. A good overview for persons such as myself who want to expand their knowledge without conventional study of Economics.
Cambridge, and scandalously not a prof
Cambridge Economics Dept – only 1 female prof; 23% of Faculty are profs. Still in the dark ages.
Chang’s book “Kicking away the ladder” smashes the idea of laissez faire development as the historical sham that it is. It totally opened my eyes as a student (as did lecturer Sam Ashman who recommended it – shout out!)
His later books are more easily worded for a more general audience, however.
I would just add further to that.. The above book is focused on comparing the historical development of advanced nations with the development policies forced on the developing world today by institutions like the IMF and world bank.
The thesis of the book is that the world’s developed nations became developed through use of lots of protectionist measures over time, and that this developmental ‘ladder’ is being kicked away from poorer countries. They are being sold a lie that in order to develop they have to liberalise everything and have a small state.
It strikes me that in the past 20-30 years this has turned around and now is not only aimed at the developing world but also the developed world. Many developed economies are now suffering the consequences too.
Chang, in my mind, has totally demolished neoliberalism for the sham that it is. He shatters it’s lies and fallacies into pieces with actual simple facts.
Ha-Joon Chang’s Bad Samaritans and 23 Things They Don’t Tell You about Capitalism; Yanis Varoufakis’ And The Weak Must Suffer What They Must? And there’s some chap called Richard Murphy who’s written The Joy of Tax that’s a good read too!
Thank you
From Twitter:
Christopher May
@chrismayLU
Oct 05
@RichardJMurphy Susan Strange: States & Markets – Karl Polanyi: Great Transformation – Margaret Archer: Culture & Agency (for method)
‘The Triumph of the Political Class’ by Peter Oborne.
A good analysis of the mendacity of New Labour type political careerism that still seems relevant.
Jared Diamond, ‘Collapse: How societies choose to fail or survive’, 2005. Scary stuff about the perils of vanity projects, misjudged markets, and environmental mismanagement.
G.F. Fiennes, ‘I tried to run a railway’, 1967. The wisest and most entertaining work I know on managing large organisations.
I loved Fiennes book
Read as a teenager….
I have a number of Chang’s books above – highly recommended. He’s a star.
I would add Steve Keen’s ‘Debunking Economics’ – a thorough roughing up(destruction even) of the neo-liberal MO I have ever read (he has a go at the Marxists as well but they did not cause the 2008 crash or all the previous ones before it) plus there is a website to back it up.
Mark Blyth’s ‘Austerity: the history of a dangerous idea’ must be in there somewhere.
Pickett & Wilkinsons ‘The Spirit Level’ – looking at the more human aspects of bad econommics. And with an updated website.
Michael Sandel’s ‘What money Can’t Buy’ – a philosophical treatise on the limits of markets/money. Convincing and beautifully argued.
Satyajit Das provides an insiders view of the actual mechanics of financial suicide in ‘Traders, Guns and Money’ and ‘Extreme Money’ – the latter is in more depth. This man wrote a manual on derivative trading that you can get on Amazon. His books justify re-regulation of the financial industry in my view – even if that is what he did not intend.
Richard Douthwaites ‘ The Ecology of Money’ and ‘The Growth Illusion’.
Picketty has to be in there now with ‘Capital’.
Your ‘Joy of Tax’ needs to be in there without a doubt.
Nicholas Timmin’s ‘The Five Giants: A biography of the Welfare state’ that even John Redwood described as a ‘fair account’.
Pablo Freire’s ‘Pedgogy of the Oppressed’ may need to be there given the crisis we have with people’s lack of education about economic and political issues in the electorate that leaves them so vulnerable to liars.
And finally as far as books are concerned Adam Phillip’s ‘On Kindness’ which reminds us that as well as our competitive side, human beings are successful because we also co-operate and care about each other too.
And for those too busy with attending dinners and hockey matches perhaps some DVD s :
Inside Job
The Flaw
Capitalism: A Love Affair
The Four Horseman
Inequality for All
And just about anything from Adam Curtis (The Trap; The Mayfair Set; The Century of the Self; Bitter Lake).
In addition to anything by Ha-Joon Chang, I’d reccomend 2 books from widely differing viewpoints.
J K Galbraith ‘Money: Whence it came, Where it went’ – if only to give a historical perspective. This author was once the epitome of social democratic thinking on the mixed economy. At the moment, this viewpoint might be described by some as ‘hard left’or ‘La-la Land’. It’s a much-quoted book, but my favourite at the moment is ‘There is nothing about money that cannot be understood by the person of reasonable curiosity, diligence and intelligence.’ Politicians don’t understand it.
Kerry-Anne Mendoza ‘Austerity The demolition of the welfare state and the rise of the Zombie Economy’ This book is unashamedly a left-wing polemic but explains in everyday language just how power, politics & finance are connected in the Austerity Con. If you don’t understand what Austerity is for (and it’s not about balancing the books) you don’t understand the Austerity Con.
‘Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security ‘ Sarah Chayes 2015
‘The Looting Machine: Warlords, Tycoons, Smugglers and the Systematic Theft of Africa’s Wealth’ Tom Burgis 2016
How global finance and governance institutions actually work outside the developed world
Almost too many to choose, so, avoiding what’s been listed so far, here are my ten
Danny Dorling: Injustice, why social inequality still persists
David Harvey: A brief history of neoliberalism
David Harvey: The enigma of capital
Karl Polanyi: The Great Transformation
Tony Judt: Ill fares the land
Owen Jones: The Establishment
Richard Murphy: The Courageous State
Michael Rowbotham: The grip of death – a study of modern money, debt slavery and destructive economics
Naomi Klein: The shock doctrine
and for method, Part 1 of, Margaret Archer: Realist Social Theory – the morphogenetic approach.
As it always helps to illustrate theory with examples I’d also add Fintan O’Toole’s ‘Ship of Fools: how stupidity and corruption sank the Celtic Tiger’ as one of the best reads, particularly for undegrads who have so many alternative distractions to actually studying and thus a relatively short attention span.
Great book
My choice:
Galbraith J.K: Money, Whence it Came Where it Went
Steve Keen : Debunking Economics
Warren Mosler: Seven Dealy Innocent Frauds.
Werner et al: Where does Money come from
Dyson/jackson: Modernising Money (good for the operations of the system even if you don’t agree with the solutions.
Wray: Modern Money Theory
Mitchell: The Failure of the Left (about to be published -title may differ)
Michael Rowbottham: The Grip of Death and Goodbye America – epoch making books that raised a lot of the questions were are dealing with now back in the late 90’s.
I would also recoment watching the film ‘Network'(1976) which prophetically announces the beginning of the globalisation and monetarist period and makes a great drama out of it.
It may be a bit basic, but Economix by Michael Goodwin is the single best primer on the subject I’ve ever encountered.
Getting on a bit, but a long-time favourite and pertinent for the world we live in is Charles Mackay’s “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds”
Great suggestions so far, but I’d also have to include Herman and Chomsky’s ‘Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media’, although I fear that too many PPEers might see it as an instruction manual rather than a warning.
Why Nations Fail – Daron AcemoÄŸlu
The End of Power – Moisés NaÃm
The Hidden Structure of Violence – Jennifer Achord Rountree
Why we can’t afford the Rich – Andrew Sayer
An old book, which is not difficult to read, but essential for economic students: Progress and Poverty, An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth: The Remedy, Henry George.
We cannot afford to have another few generations of economists who do not understand the land issue.
Setting aside my personal view that PPE tends to mean P**s Poor Education…!
Lots of great recommendations, and quite a few I must add to my ever growing reading list – I’d add, trying not to duplicate:
Amartya Sen – Development as Freedom – though its about developing countries, it contains fundamental truths for any society
John Gray – False Dawn – a philosopher’s assault on global capitalism and deregulation
Banerjee and Duflo – Poor Economics – what it really means to be poor and how people survive. Questions lots of assumptions
Will Hutton – any of his books – one of the few authors who tries to be constructive and see a way forward
Jonathan Porritt – Capitalism as if the World Mattered – a constructively challenging critic, from an environmental perspective
Nouriel Roubini – Crisis Ecocnomicsone of the few contrarian economists who has been challenging finance for years
Nassim Taleb – Black Swans – challenges the underlying thinking on probabilities that dominates classical economics
Eric Beinhocker – Origins of Wealth – complexity and chaos, evolution, ecosystems and more, in rethinking economic systems
Better stop there
Just Money – Ann Pettifor
I admit that is one I would not put in the list
It’s a quite confusing work
I think this is a great list so far, so I won’t repeat any of the suggestions. However, the post-growth ideas are not well represented, whether you agree with them or not. Here are some suggestions:
Tim Jackson, “Prosperity without growth”
Rob Dietz & Dan O’Neill, “Enough is enough”
Giacomo D’Alisa, Federico Demaria, Giorgos Kallis: “Degrowth: A Vocabulary for a new era”
also, Bob Ayres and Benjamin Warr, “The Economic Growth Engine: How Energy and Work Drive Material Prosperity”
The Growth Fetish by Clive Hamilton. Challenges the idea (ideology?) that economic growth is desirable in countries that are already “developed”.
He also argues that infinite economic growth is not possible with the finite resources of a single planet.
Adam Smith `Wealth of Nations` – only one proviso: you gotta read it all the way through.
In which case can I add Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments, which captures all the stuff the notorious Adam Smith Institute ignores.
Though I’ll admit Ive not read it every page! But enough to argue with the ASI mob occasionally who seem to have read neither book
The ASI do a condensed version of both. Here’s a question to put to the ASI mob
(& to badge-wearing ‘lefties’) Who said that money isn’t wealth? Guess who?
Machiavelli – The Prince
George Orwell – Nineteen Eighty-Four
Cliched perhaps but still a reminder that bad stuff happens, and bad economics is practised because it suits some people that way.
Also…
Richard Cantillon’s Essay On Economic Theory
The modern translation far easier to read than Smith, and a reminder that some people understood money/finance/economics far better in the early 1700s than most orthodox economists do today. 300 years of “trained incapacity”.
Some great recommendations here. Anglo-Republic: The Bank that Broke Ireland by Simon Carswell is a jaw-dropping page turner.
No mention of Michael Lewis? Just add everything. The Big Short also a great film.
For unputtable down reading, and a quick read
Hmmm – watch out for any Michael Lewis book, He has said himself that all his books seemed to do was encourage people into the finncial sector!
Some great recommendations here. Anglo-Republic: The Bank that Broke Ireland by Simon Carswell is a jaw-dropping page turner.
No mention of Michael Lewis? Just add everything. The Big Short also a great film.
For unputtable-down reading, and a quick read Gregory Zuckerman’s Greatest Trade Ever is hard to beat.
Too Big To Fail by Aaron Ross Sorkin
Lords of Finance by Liaqat Ashamed
Whoops by John Manchester
13 Bankers by James Kwak and Simon Johnson
The Spirit Level by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett
Also come to mind as worthwhile, likewise Taleb’s Black Swan & Fooled by Randomness.
For anyone wanting to make “must read” notes from this page (I know I will) and who uses an android phone the MyBookDroid app (free), is a handy way of logging what you want to read. You can just add an author and title or, if you are browsing someone else’s shelves, you can scan the bar code and everything — ISBN, cover image, abstract, publisher etc will all be fetched from the Internet in a few seconds. I ordered a book today in my local bookshop by allowing the owner to transcribe the ISBN from my phone.
Afterthought: Michael Lewis’s Vanity Fair articles on financial disaster tourism are (afaik) still available online — his visits to Greece, Ireland etc after the crash. Very funny, well written, and acutely observed.
Afterthought 2: besides a list of good books it would be good to see a list of links to freely available resources.
3: I have to add Ian Fraser’s Shredded
Not purely about Finance but about the history of Oil, which has driven Financial issues, as well as fuelled wars and strife for a century and more
The Prize, by Daniel Yergin
also
Looting of America, by Les Leopold
Why are we the good guys, by David Cromwell
Hidden Agendas, by John Pilger
The price of Inequality, by Joseph Stiglitz
What is America, by Ronald Wright
A short History of Progress, also Ronald Wright
All enjoyable in their own way and easy to read too
For a good look at the stupidities of political decisions within the neo-liberal context:
James Meek, Private Island; John Seddon, The Whitehall Effect and Drs Davis, Lister and Wrigley, NHS for Sale.
For an introduction to government from the ground up Freedom from Fear by Aneurin Bevan is a must. Contrary to popular belief only on chapter is on the, NHS, the rest are largely a thoughtful view of what being in government really entails and how by putting the people first it can really do some good.
Grip of Death by Michael Rowbotham and Web of Debt (5th Edition, not the earlier ones) from Ellen Brown. They’re the recent ones people should read. To get historical background, essential to understand where we came from and how we got here if you want to understand where we are, I’d suggest Lisa Jardine’s Going Dutch. For example, in a chapter called “From Invasion to Glorious Revolution: Editing Out the Dutch” Lisa asks, “So why is there almost no trace of this vast, hostile armada, with its dramatic progress along the English Channel, its fanfares and gun-salutes and parading battalions, in conventional historical accounts of the so-called ‘Glorious Revolution’? Why are many of us unaware of the fact that at the time of the English Parliament’s ‘welcoming’ William and his wife Mary Stuart, and subsequently, in early 1689, inviting them jointly to ascend the English throne, the country was in the grip of full-scale military occupation, with Dutch troops posted in front of key buildings throughout London and growing unrest and resentment throughout the land?… how have we come to believe that William of Orange ascended the English throne in an entirely peaceful, not to say ‘glorious’ revolution?”
She goes on, “as historian Jonathan Isreal has observed; ‘Since the early eighteenth century, a thick wall of silence has descended over the Dutch occupation of London 1688-9. The whole business came to seem so improbable to later generations that by common consent, scholarly and popular, it was simply erased from the record`”
Jardine appears to have been wise to (Sir) George Downing too; “”Downing’s most important contribution to English fiscal policy, however, was the importation of the underlying principles of state banking that led ultimately to the formation of the Bank of England.” Further, “Downing’s scheme used parliamentary legislation to underwrite loan repayments with the authority of the state (rather than simply of the monarch personally)” Further still, “Downing worked tirelessly to reform English financial institutions so as to bring them inline with those he regarded as so supremely successful in the United Provinces. He did so in spite of the fact that England was a monarchy, while the United Provinces was a long established republic. In so doing, he put in place the machinery for the ‘constitutional monarchy’ which would follow the arrival of William III in England in 1688.”
More of that in John Beresford’s The Godfather of Downing Street – Sir George Downing. Lots more, in fact.
The Invention of Capitalism by Michael Perelman is important reading too, but not quite in the same league, perhaps, as William Cobbett’s Paper Against Gold; or, The History and Mystery of the Bank of England, of the Debt, of the Stocks, of the Sinking Fund, and of all the Other Tricks and Contrivances, Carried On by the Means of Paper Money, after reading which, I warn you, you’ll find yourself collapsing into giggles when anyone suggests we were ever on any sort of gold standard.
Progress and Poverty is essential reading. In the late 19th century it was the world’s best selling book after the Bible. The book is now written in modern English. When reading a light bulb may light up in your head.
By?
You have me there….
Progress and Poverty by Henry George
Thanks
As ignored above.
You are right about the essential reading, I am no Economics person, but my interest in world progress, and the way it is misrepresented and misreported requires that I get very much to grips with the basics, and the sooner the better.
Mr Kindle came to my rescue and for mere pennies, I downloaded Progress and Poverty last night. My wife was none too happy at 3am, glowing in the dark…….but I couldnt put it down.
For a book written so long ago it is brilliant, thanks for that pointer.
My son and I are soon to be publishing a web based newspaper based upon real news and not the MSM nonsense we live on now. My research has turned up dozens of specialist websites and blogsites dedicated to “telling it like it is”(Including this one)
I will be putting out a list of these sites very soon to anyone who is interested
Please share them!
THANKS
Some very good recommends on here, some more accessible than others, to avoid repetition I would only add:-
books and talks by John Ralston Saul
talks by Ralph Nader
monthly podcast by Richard S Wolff
and of course The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist
1] Andrew Sayer, Why We Can’t Afford the Rich (2015). Probably the best primer on economics for the layperson I’ve ever come across.
2] Aneurin Bevan, In Place of Fear (1952). This was my introduction to radical politics by the founder of the NHS and a friend to my great grandfather.
3] David Harvey, Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism (2014).
4] Ha-Joon Chang, 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism (2010).
5] Noam Chomsky, Requiem for the American Dream (2015). Admittedly this is a documentary, but it is an excellent introduction to the political philosophy of one of the world’s leading public intellectuals.
6] Paul Mason, PostCapitalism: A Guide to our Future (2015).
7] Thomas Piketty, Capital in the 21st Century (2015). A classic. Prescient and informative, though somewhat difficult to read for the layperson.
8] Yanis Varoufakis, The Global Minotaur: America and the Future of the Global Economy (2011). An important analysis on the role of the US in shaping the global economy since WW2.
9] Yanis Varoufakis, And the Weak Suffer What They Must: Europe, Austerity, and the Threat to Global Stability (2016). A must read, especially in the light of Brexit.
10] Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2014). This was a fascinating read, though I often disagreed with the author. His lectures are freely available to all on YouTube.
Thanks
I will pull this together in due course
I quite liked:
Ricardo’s Law: House Prices and the Great Tax Clawback Scam
by Fred Harrison
A lot more than just explaining the legalised scam.
Piketty and Capital seem to be getting a lot of love, am I alone in finding it mundane? Maybe my expectations from all the hype were too high but I found it a let down and a bit of a grind to plough through.
It could have been said in 250 pages