Economics: The User's Guide by Chang Ha-Joon

Motivated by his great series of lectures on economics, I bought this book. A truly great introduction to economics that is engaging and witty, making what appears to be a dry, academic subject accessible to the educated layperson.

Chang's introduction to economics advocates for a heterogeneous method of doing economics, contesting the hegemonic status of the dominant Neoclassical school. Chang identifies nine schools of economics: the Classical, Neoclassical, Marxist, Developmentalist, Austrian, Schumpeterian, Keynesian, Institutionalist, and Behaviouralist schools. As Chang explains in a concise but informative way, each school has a different way of analyzing the economy. Each school makes different assumptions about individuals, the economy, and the world, while analyzing different sections of the economy (e.g. the Neoclassical emphasizes consumption-based activities but does not focus on production, unlike the Marxist and Classical school). Chang takes Singapore as a case study for the necessity of heterogeneity: he challenges anyone to explain the development of Singapore from the perspective of just one school.

Chang goes even further and recognizes the necessity of the other social sciences for a holistic understanding of human phenomena. He notes the trend of explaining all human phenomena with economics ("economic imperialism") as evidenced by books like Freakonomics. The dominant Neoclassical school defines economics by its theoretical approach (rational choice) and the ideological conditions allow manifestations like Freakonomics in popular culture--Chang wishes to reorient economics back to the study of the economy. To do this, Chang explores two areas that he claims are under-studied by economists today: history and real-life numbers, the latter of which are constructed and less objective than one might think.

Ultimately, through his user's guide to economics, Chang hopes "to show the reader how to think, not what to think, about the economy." Chang are armed to form their own opinions and contest the economist's expert mystique, especially when, as Chang points out over and over throughout the book, economics today is a "political argunent often presented as a science."

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