Filthy Lucre : Economics for People who Hate Capitalism
Filthy Lucre : Economics for People who Hate Capitalism
by Joseph Health
This was one of those books: you take it off a book truck, glance though it to assign subject headings, and half an hour later your only question is-buy it now or request it for birthday? (I bought it now.) Mr. Heath is a philosophy professor, not an economist, as he charmingly admits in his introduction, and his job here is to explain the different logical fallacies that people fall into when proposing or voting for various economic policies. Although one would guess from his title that he leans toward the liberal point of view, he is quite even-handed, with half of his book devoted to “Right-Wing Fallacies” and the other half to “Left-Wing Fallacies.” He is not proposing any particular economic policy himself, except that people should understand what is being proposed and why it may or may not be expected to work. I did think that some of his arguments were a bit shallow and skipped over real-life complications, but his main concern was not to criticize policies themselves so much as the logic behind them. Read it for a good-humored introduction to economics and some of the best-known things people get wrong about it.
I would like to tag this as nonfiction, but that tag is not available.
by Joseph Health
This was one of those books: you take it off a book truck, glance though it to assign subject headings, and half an hour later your only question is-buy it now or request it for birthday? (I bought it now.) Mr. Heath is a philosophy professor, not an economist, as he charmingly admits in his introduction, and his job here is to explain the different logical fallacies that people fall into when proposing or voting for various economic policies. Although one would guess from his title that he leans toward the liberal point of view, he is quite even-handed, with half of his book devoted to “Right-Wing Fallacies” and the other half to “Left-Wing Fallacies.” He is not proposing any particular economic policy himself, except that people should understand what is being proposed and why it may or may not be expected to work. I did think that some of his arguments were a bit shallow and skipped over real-life complications, but his main concern was not to criticize policies themselves so much as the logic behind them. Read it for a good-humored introduction to economics and some of the best-known things people get wrong about it.
I would like to tag this as nonfiction, but that tag is not available.