So, the French version of Economix has been getting some awesome reviews. Here’s Phillipe Arnaud in Le Monde, which even I, in my America-based provincialism, had heard of:
“Proof that one can make difficult concepts intelligible without the encumbrance of mathematics!” (My translation.)
And Omri Ezrati at Al Bayane (a Francophone Moroccan outlet) says:
“Combining comics with clear text and plenty of humor, this graphic novel transforms the “dismal science” of the economy into an amusing history accessible to everyone. . . . Economix is indispensable in all libraries.”
I of course check my Amazon rankings every couple of minutes; now I’m checking my ranking on Amazon France as well. It’s up there!
The combining of comics with the difficult subject of economics is a brilliant undertaking. It is not new by any stretch, however, it is a valiant effort to bring such an important and often misunderstood subject to the masses.
I must admit my surprise that Michael Goodwin discussed the great economists who were/ are Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, David Ricardo, Friedrich Engels, Alfred Marshall, John Maynard Keynes, and Karl Marx without making any mention of Keynes rival Friedrich Hayek. This book purports to be an objective and comprehensive overview of the difficult field of economics for both young student and enterprising adult alike. However, I find it to be a pro-Keynesian “saltwater” economic text as opposed to addressing both important and opposing interpretations of market cycles.
> I must admit my surprise that Michael Goodwin discussed the great economists who were/ are Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, David Ricardo, Friedrich Engels, Alfred Marshall, John Maynard Keynes, and Karl Marx without making any mention of Keynes rival Friedrich Hayek.
I must admit my surprise that someone who claims to have read the book says that Hayek isn’t in it. True, I didn’t give Hayek’s ideas the same space I gave Keynes’s, or Friedman’s, but that’s because his actual ideas weren’t all that influential; like Adam Smith, Hayek is used as the standard-bearer of ideas that he didn’t actually believe.
>This book purports to be an objective and comprehensive overview of the difficult field of economics for both young student and enterprising adult alike.
Where do I say I’m being objective? I go very far out of my way to say that this is my own personal take on things.
>However, I find it to be a pro-Keynesian “saltwater” economic text
You’re not exactly allaying my suspicion that you haven’t read it.
>as opposed to addressing both important and opposing interpretations of market cycles.
Important? I’m not a huge fan of mainstream economics as it’s usually taught either in freshwater or saltwater schools, but the freshwater ideas of market cycles gave us Robert Lucas saying “The central problem of depression prevention has been solved.” Why waste space on discredited ideas? The subtitle of my book is “how our economy works and doesn’t work,” not “how a bunch of bozos who play with abstract models and understand nothing else think it works.”