I like Naked Economics by Charles Wheelan: https://www.amazon.com/Naked-Economics-Undressing-Science-Revised/dp/0393337642
It is just a good intro book on some basics with examples and it is fun to actually read, so you absorb more of it.
There are allot of topics within Economics so after you explore some you should have a better idea of what you want to focus on.
If you like the Simpsons, Homer Economicus is one of my favorite "economic" books, but I am definitely biased on that one. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0804791716/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1484673928&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=homer+economicus&dpPl=1&dpID=51etTg6WQLL&ref=plSrch Really just entertaining with a little learning.
Anyway good luck.
Topic: What's Your Favourite Economic Book? - page 2. (Read 309 times)
So the best government/economic book I have read is Taleb's Antifragile. It will go against most of what you have been taught in business school (and probably economics if your teachers were anything like mine) and I believe extremely valuable in pointing out the other side of the coin that is often minimized due to its implications. It does go a bit beyond just government and business but it is extremely original and interesting.
Another suggestion for pure economic history would be Keynes Hayek the clash that defined modern economics. It is very well done.
Another suggestion for pure economic history would be Keynes Hayek the clash that defined modern economics. It is very well done.
There are a lot of wonderful writers on economics and they have wonderful ideas expressed in those books but one book that really changed my mind about economics and money in general is the science of getting rich.this writer made me understand that there is an exact science of getting rich just like 2+2=4 .If anyone do this science either consciously or unconsciously will definitely be rich.
My favorite economic book is Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. This economics book is a must read to understand our thinking, our system and psychology behind our decision making. He has also elaborated on how we can change our thinking and not just our thinking but also our lives. Very clearly put across the beauty and details of the subject to explain the facts of human behavior and its impact on the economy and how we can deal with it. Try to read it and surely you'll learn something out of it.
I also forgot to mention The Federal Reserve and the Financial Crisis by Ben Bernanke, he was a chairman of fed reserve during the crisis of 2008-2009 and shares his "inner" view in this book.
I really enjoyed That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen by Frederic Bastiat. It really makes you look at economic processess from a different perspective.
I'm curious to know what your favourite economic book is. I've read some Keynesian stuff and Ludwig von Mises. So far I think 'Human Action' is mine.
Care to share what you think is stellar?
I like the book Globalization and its Discontents written in 2002 author Joseph E. StiglitzCare to share what you think is stellar?
and a book was written by Robert T.Kiyosaki entitled Rich Dad Poor Dad
Mine is internet of money . It taught me enough for me to say that it changed my life. I encourage everyone here to read couple of books
After you become bored of "Why Nations fail" and "Rich dad poor dad", try Freakonomics. If you like behavioral economics, then worth reading any articles by Richard Thaler.
Way back in senior high school, I preferred reading Geography to Economics but I got to know the fact behind all these courses. In the world so far, I got to notice that life without knowledge in economics makes it unwholesome so I decided to shift my attention to economics .
I like reading economic books written by Adam Smith. They really keep me on my toes and I get the requisite knowledge I need to leave in this world. His book entitled ‘’An Inquiry Into The Nature And Causes Of The Wealth Of Nations’’ is a book I like best.
I like reading economic books written by Adam Smith. They really keep me on my toes and I get the requisite knowledge I need to leave in this world. His book entitled ‘’An Inquiry Into The Nature And Causes Of The Wealth Of Nations’’ is a book I like best.
Right now I'm very slowly reading The Pentagon of Power by Lewis Mumford.
Its difficult to read book due to the numerous factoids and abstracts but well worth it. Mumford is very underrated imo. Lewis Mumford should have the fame, hype and accolades which Karl Marx and Keynes have for entirely different reasons.
I'll try to quote a few excerpts from Lewis Mumford to show how his rhetoric differs from other economists.
Its difficult to read book due to the numerous factoids and abstracts but well worth it. Mumford is very underrated imo. Lewis Mumford should have the fame, hype and accolades which Karl Marx and Keynes have for entirely different reasons.
I'll try to quote a few excerpts from Lewis Mumford to show how his rhetoric differs from other economists.
Its true that there are several unsung heroes in the academics or history who have written the books that could change the course of history that we have come to know but the issue is about those who will recognise them and those who would made that available. The reason why majority of us have heard about Karl Marx, Adams Smith, Plato, and all others, was not because they are special or we liked them, its because what those in charge of giving us knowledge wanted us to know, and what you don't know does not exist to you (in relation to those unsung heroes).
Reading through some excerpts in the book you quote, I could understand one of the reasons why they were not popular like their counterparts is because they value morality, the considered the evil men have in their hearts and the extent of oppression they would do to fellow human beings if given the opportunity, they wrote against that. But the people in power don't want that, they want someone telling the kids aspiring to join the Air force that F50 fliers are machines of destructions, or there is no need for nuclear plants etc but that the world is a place of competition where you have to survive by every means necessary and the person, friend, colleague, country is looking to pull you down.
Well I have read a fair number in the past few years. But there was this book called "Rich Dad Poor Dad" which I read when I was 14 and it changed my perspective about money. It has greatly influenced my spending habits, my thrust for financial literacy, understanding business and creating one for my own. I am really glad that I read this book in my formative years of building up. When I see my peers taking huge loans and buy big houses, lavish cars I understand the rationale behind their behaviour and how it would affect them going forward.
Right now I'm very slowly reading The Pentagon of Power by Lewis Mumford.
Its difficult to read book due to the numerous factoids and abstracts but well worth it. Mumford is very underrated imo. Lewis Mumford should have the fame, hype and accolades which Karl Marx and Keynes have for entirely different reasons.
I'll try to quote a few excerpts from Lewis Mumford to show how his rhetoric differs from other economists.
...
Its difficult to read book due to the numerous factoids and abstracts but well worth it. Mumford is very underrated imo. Lewis Mumford should have the fame, hype and accolades which Karl Marx and Keynes have for entirely different reasons.
I'll try to quote a few excerpts from Lewis Mumford to show how his rhetoric differs from other economists.
Quote
The dogma of ‘increasing wants’ as an indispensible basis for further industrial progress. Instead of the duty to work, we now have the duty to consume. To ensure rapid absorbtion of its immense productivity, megatechnics resorts to a score of different devices: consumer credit, installment buying, multiple packaging, non-functional designs, meretricious novelties, shoddy materials, defective workmanship, built-in fragility.
The aim of industry is not primarily to satisfy essential human needs with a minimal productive effort, but to multiply the number of needs, factitious and fictitious, and accommodate them to the maximum mechanical capacity to produce profits. These are the sacred principle of the power complex. Not the least effort of this system is that of replacing selectivity and quantitative restriction by indiscriminate and incontinent consumption.
Thus the shorter working day promised by this system is already turning into a cheat. In order to achieve the higher level of consumption required, the members of the family must take on extra jobs. […] The effect, ironically, is to turn the newly won six- or seven-hour day to twelve or fourteen hours; so in effect, the worker is back where he started, with more material goods than ever before, but with less time to enjoy them or the promised leisure.
If all these goods are in themselves sound and individually desirable, on what grounds can we condemn the system that totalizes them? So say the official spokesmen. All these goods remain valuable if more important human concerns are not overlooked or eradicated. Unqualified successes in over-quantification.
When a scientist in good repute, like Dr. Lee du Bridge, can defend the wholesale immediate use of pesticides, bactericides, and possibly equally dangerous pharmaceuticals, by saying that it would take ten years to test them sufficiently to certify their value and innocuousness and that ‘industry cannot wait’ – it is obvious that his rational commitments to science are secondary to financial pressures, and that the safeguarding of human life is for industry not a matter of major concern.
The ironic effect of quantification is that many of the most desirable gifts of modern technics disappear when distributed en masse, or when – as with the television – they are used too constantly and too automatically. No umbilical cord attached man to nature: neiter ‘security’ nor ‘adjustment’ were the guidelines to human development.
Patrick Geddes: Conditions of degeneration in the organic world are approximately known. These conditions are often of two distinct kinds, deprivation of food, light, etc. so leading to imperfect nutrition and enervation; the other, a life of repose, with abundant supply of food and decreased exposure to the dangers of the environment. It is noteworthy that while the former only depresses, or at most distinguishes the specific type, the latter, through the disuse of the nervous and other structures etc. which such a simplification of life involves, brings about that far more insidious and through degeneration seen in the life history of myriads of parasites.
THE PENTAGON OF POWER, Lewis Mumford, 1970
The aim of industry is not primarily to satisfy essential human needs with a minimal productive effort, but to multiply the number of needs, factitious and fictitious, and accommodate them to the maximum mechanical capacity to produce profits. These are the sacred principle of the power complex. Not the least effort of this system is that of replacing selectivity and quantitative restriction by indiscriminate and incontinent consumption.
Thus the shorter working day promised by this system is already turning into a cheat. In order to achieve the higher level of consumption required, the members of the family must take on extra jobs. […] The effect, ironically, is to turn the newly won six- or seven-hour day to twelve or fourteen hours; so in effect, the worker is back where he started, with more material goods than ever before, but with less time to enjoy them or the promised leisure.
If all these goods are in themselves sound and individually desirable, on what grounds can we condemn the system that totalizes them? So say the official spokesmen. All these goods remain valuable if more important human concerns are not overlooked or eradicated. Unqualified successes in over-quantification.
When a scientist in good repute, like Dr. Lee du Bridge, can defend the wholesale immediate use of pesticides, bactericides, and possibly equally dangerous pharmaceuticals, by saying that it would take ten years to test them sufficiently to certify their value and innocuousness and that ‘industry cannot wait’ – it is obvious that his rational commitments to science are secondary to financial pressures, and that the safeguarding of human life is for industry not a matter of major concern.
The ironic effect of quantification is that many of the most desirable gifts of modern technics disappear when distributed en masse, or when – as with the television – they are used too constantly and too automatically. No umbilical cord attached man to nature: neiter ‘security’ nor ‘adjustment’ were the guidelines to human development.
Patrick Geddes: Conditions of degeneration in the organic world are approximately known. These conditions are often of two distinct kinds, deprivation of food, light, etc. so leading to imperfect nutrition and enervation; the other, a life of repose, with abundant supply of food and decreased exposure to the dangers of the environment. It is noteworthy that while the former only depresses, or at most distinguishes the specific type, the latter, through the disuse of the nervous and other structures etc. which such a simplification of life involves, brings about that far more insidious and through degeneration seen in the life history of myriads of parasites.
THE PENTAGON OF POWER, Lewis Mumford, 1970
...
Quote
As early as 1066, when William the Conqueror seized England, there were 8,000 watermills, serving less than one million people. At the very modest estimate of 2.5 horsepower per mill, this was twice the energy that was available through the assemblage of the 100,000 men who built the Great Pyramid, and probably more than twenty times in relation to the population of their respective countries.
Even in backward mining communities, as late as the sixteenth century more than half the recorded days were holidays; while for Europe as a whole, the total number of holidays, including Sunday, came to 189, a number even greater than those enjoyed by Imperial Rome. The idea that there should be no limits upon any human function is absurd: all life exists within very narrow limits of temperature, air, water or food; and the notion that money alone, or power to command the services of other men, should be free of such definite limits is an aberration of mind.
Where capitalism prospered, it established three main canons for successful economic enterprise: the calculation of quantity, the observation and the regimentation of time (‘Time is Money’), and the concentration on abstract pecuniary awards. Its ultimate values – Power, Profit, Prestige – derive from these sources and all of them can be traced back, under the flimsiest of disguises, to the Pyramid Age.
Leonardo: “men shall walk without moving [motorcar], they shall speak with those absent [telephone], they shall hear those who do not speak [phonograph]”. Is the intelligence alone, however purified and decontaminated, an adequate agent for doing justice to the needs and purposes of life?
Leonardo, for example, invented the submarine [but] he deliberately suppressed the invention “on the account of the evil nature in men, who would practice assassination at the bottom of the sea”. Inventions in Medieval Age: velocipede and military tank (Fontana), diving suit and infernal machine (Konrad Keyeser von Eichstadt), toxic gas
John Stuart Mill – ‘Principles of Economies’: it is doubtful if all the machinery then available had yet lightened the day’s labor of a single being. Within a century or two, the ideological fabric that supported the ancient megamachine had been reconstructed on a new and improved model. Power, speed, motion, standardization, mass production, quantification, regimentation, precision, uniformity, astronomical regularity, control, above all control – these became the passwords of modern society in the new Western style
TECHNICS AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT, Lewis Mumford, 1967
Even in backward mining communities, as late as the sixteenth century more than half the recorded days were holidays; while for Europe as a whole, the total number of holidays, including Sunday, came to 189, a number even greater than those enjoyed by Imperial Rome. The idea that there should be no limits upon any human function is absurd: all life exists within very narrow limits of temperature, air, water or food; and the notion that money alone, or power to command the services of other men, should be free of such definite limits is an aberration of mind.
Where capitalism prospered, it established three main canons for successful economic enterprise: the calculation of quantity, the observation and the regimentation of time (‘Time is Money’), and the concentration on abstract pecuniary awards. Its ultimate values – Power, Profit, Prestige – derive from these sources and all of them can be traced back, under the flimsiest of disguises, to the Pyramid Age.
Leonardo: “men shall walk without moving [motorcar], they shall speak with those absent [telephone], they shall hear those who do not speak [phonograph]”. Is the intelligence alone, however purified and decontaminated, an adequate agent for doing justice to the needs and purposes of life?
Leonardo, for example, invented the submarine [but] he deliberately suppressed the invention “on the account of the evil nature in men, who would practice assassination at the bottom of the sea”. Inventions in Medieval Age: velocipede and military tank (Fontana), diving suit and infernal machine (Konrad Keyeser von Eichstadt), toxic gas
John Stuart Mill – ‘Principles of Economies’: it is doubtful if all the machinery then available had yet lightened the day’s labor of a single being. Within a century or two, the ideological fabric that supported the ancient megamachine had been reconstructed on a new and improved model. Power, speed, motion, standardization, mass production, quantification, regimentation, precision, uniformity, astronomical regularity, control, above all control – these became the passwords of modern society in the new Western style
TECHNICS AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT, Lewis Mumford, 1967
My favorite economic book is "The Rise and Fall of American Growth by Robert Gordon": as the author has explained the way of economics differently. I would suggest you check this out.
But i think this topic should be in off-topic
But i think this topic should be in off-topic
I'm curious to know what your favourite economic book is. I've read some Keynesian stuff and Ludwig von Mises. So far I think 'Human Action' is mine.
Care to share what you think is stellar?
Care to share what you think is stellar?
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