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Theory & Philosophy Search Theory & Philosophy Theory & Philosophy50 Economics Ideas: You Really Need to Know (50 Ideas): your really need to know
Quercus Publishing Plc Search Quercus Publishing Plc by Edmund Conway Search Edmund Conway
Customer Reviews:
A friendly companion
Conway really knows a thing or 50 about economics. The joy of this book though is that whilst it helps 'tick things off' which anyone with half an eye on current affairs and the world around really ought to know, it does so in a chirpy snappy manner which helps to instil a sense of confidence to reflect on, and converse about, ideas which might hitherto have seemed impenetrably esoteric. Moreover, it imparts a great deal of enthusiasm for the subject matter and I feel encouraged and equipped to gain a more comprehensive and in-depth understanding of these key principles of economic theory and analysis.
Refreshing and compelling introduction to some important subjects
As someone who thinks she knows a bit about economics but on occasion feels woefully uninformed, this book is exactly what I was looking for. It is interesting, readable, witty in places and pitched at just the right level - being informative without being patronising. Most importantly it covers all those crucial topics I kind of thought I knew about but didn't really, and occasionally ended up feeling slightly clueless in conversations whilst others waxed lyrical about crunches, markets and all the `isms' (insert protection, multilateral, capital etc as required).
At last I can properly understand all those slightly baffling economic phrases that the papers are littered with - stagflation and quantitative easing trip off my tongue. Hurrah! And most importantly I can now play those irritating conversationalists who pretend they know stuff at their own game.
Its clear and concise and easy to dip into. I'm very interested but I'm afraid I don't have time to go digging into massive tomes. I know these are big subjects and there is a lot more to read but as an introduction this is just perfect. Thank you Mr Conway for a refreshing and compelling introduction to a tricky but topical subject!
Why do I keep doing it? 
I've bought a couple of the 50 ideas books and I've got to say I always get the buyers regret. Its unsurprising why I do buy them because they are superficially such a nice product. There's consistently good glossary and index; contents clear and concise; each chapter/idea a synopsis accompanied by a time line runing along the bottom of the page; quotable quotes in bold along the margins and each idea condensed in a couple of lines at its finish and dialogue boxes and great spacing to make reading easy.
However there are major sins of ommission with each book, fairly significant ideas or topics are either not mentioned or summarised in a truly woefully fashion, even boardering on inaccuracy. I've always thought that the topics that are selected or ommitted provide an insight into the filters or prejudices of the authors. Which would be fine were it not for the fact that I suspect people, particularly younger readers or students, could be fooled into thinking this is an objective account and "final word".
An example of what I'm talking about would be the inclusion, under the chapter heading of "the movements" of capitalism; keynesianism; monetarism; communism; individualism; supply-side economics; the marginal revolution.
What is described in "capitalism" would more accurately be described as English political economy, capitalism being a later label supplied by Marx in an attempt to reframe economic discourse, since he felt it wasnt a science any longer but an ideology serving vested interests.
There is a good chapter on Keynesianism with some good synopsis in point form of the central tenets, monetarism is not bad but situated in the context of challenges to Keynesianism there creeps in a sort of enthused chronicling of intellectual battles.
The piece on communism is abjectly awful, Marx is mentioned but the author can only be familiar with secondary sources, if at all, there are some brief asides about his popularity among listeners to BBC radio and how baffling this and continued sales of Das Kapital are. The concept is condensced as an egalitarian, entirely state run society, setting aside the fact that this statement in itself is an oxymoron, Marx and Engels famously dismissed egalitarianism as "cantor". There's an extremely confused note about Marx's observation of social economic trends which better describes liberal expectations of a "progressive" pattern in history. There's no mention of super abundance, business cycles or the other combined trends Marx believed would render capitalism obsolete as anything other than an ideological convention like monarchy. Instead there is a lot of vague comment upon the fairness of class divisions and then examples of "communism in the modern world" which considers communism as synonymous with central planning despite central planning having been used by pretty much even sort of government, including capitalist governments in a pitch.
The following chapters How Economies Work; Finance and Markets; The Issues and finally Alternative Economics are interesting, while How Economics Work and Finance and Markets are good I dont believe there are just as good as The Best Book on the Market: How to Stop Worrying and Love the Free Economy but are good introductionary synopsis of really salient points. The chapter labelled "The Issues" is partisan in the extreme and pretty unbalanced. Globalisation isnt presented as the restructuring of a hierarchy of self-contained economies into a single world economy with consequent costs and benefits to individual nations but rather as the adoption of uniform business practices or trends. Multilaterialism and Protectionism are presented as threats to peace and prosperity without any consideration of how each have been deployed by some of the worlds premier nations to guarantee food security rather than defend entrenched privileges. These are contentious issues upon which there is not agreement and perhaps its asking a lot to cover all the angles in a book of this kind but all the author need have done is say so.
The chapter on alternative economics is unintentionally humourous, particularly with the inclusion of things like Criminomics and Happynomics alongside more reasonable ideas like game theory, developmental, environmental and behavioural economics. All the same its fair to include them since mainstream economic models and concepts have remained pretty much in stasis since their inception.
Overall its an easy read and would be good for anyone unfamiliar with the subject matter, I think it would be great for any school age reader or anyone studying economics at GCSE level. Perhaps one to borrow rather than buy though.
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