Economic Bites

Tip: How to delete existing posts and create your own

'Reading Bites' are examples of economic thought as opposed to ideology, and come from writers of fiction, non-fiction, travelogue, poetry, or whatever.

Economic thought and criticism is generally found more vibrant, pertinent and pointed when it comes from people who are not economists or mainstream TV or print journalists.

The verbal practice of economics, with greater or lesser ignorance and/or ideology, outside of formal economic structures is a common human social intercourse. We write, talk, rant and cant about it in one form or another, endlessly, ad nauseam. But in an ideological age it is those outside of the ideology who provide the most acute and precise critical observations, be they about economics or class structures, etc. Obvious examples of past economic critics are Charles Dickens and Jonathan Swift; perhaps less obvious examples are William Shakespeare, William Blake, Aristotle, ... well, the list is endless. Here is a short list of examples that I have come across while reading. I have also included criticism on the quality of rational and/or empirical thought and argument displayed by our educated elite from social sciences other than economics because they can shed light on the poor level of thinking displayed by today's officially sanctified economists.