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marshaskrypuch's review against another edition
5.0
I would never intentionally read a book written about economic theory, but I received this as a Netgalley e-review copy.
Reading this is an eye-opener, demonstrating how economists' theories can have a huge influence on government policy and how this can affect our daily lives in unexpected ways. This may not sound sexy but it sure is eye-opening.
Reading this is an eye-opener, demonstrating how economists' theories can have a huge influence on government policy and how this can affect our daily lives in unexpected ways. This may not sound sexy but it sure is eye-opening.
eclectictales's review against another edition
3.0
I was approved an ARC of this book by the publishers via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This review in its entirety was originally posted at my blog, eclectic tales: http://eclectictales.insanitysandwich.com/blog/2019/10/04/review-the-economists-hour-false-prophets-free-markets-and-the-fracture-of-societ/
I read this eARC at a very interesting time, reading a lot of economics at the time. The first half of the book was more historical, following the progress of how the economic system developed for most of the twentieth century, whereas the latter half of the book focused on more recent political and economic events. It does focus considerably on economic politics and developments in the United States, which makes sense given their role in the world during the 20th century, but the third part of the book does take a more international focus, which I appreciated since that’s the part of economics that interests me.
I wish I had more to say about this book; unfortunately I did read the bulk of this book as I was queuing for an event so I might have used some more of the details. Overall though The Economists’ Hour was a fascinating read; I learned a lot more about the economists and individuals involved in directing and dictating the flow of politics and economics throughout the twentieth century, what they did, what they introduced (or not) that shaped how we came to be in our present situation globally. Definitely worth checking out if you’re interested in the topic. Many thanks to the publishers again for letting me read a copy of this book.
I read this eARC at a very interesting time, reading a lot of economics at the time. The first half of the book was more historical, following the progress of how the economic system developed for most of the twentieth century, whereas the latter half of the book focused on more recent political and economic events. It does focus considerably on economic politics and developments in the United States, which makes sense given their role in the world during the 20th century, but the third part of the book does take a more international focus, which I appreciated since that’s the part of economics that interests me.
I wish I had more to say about this book; unfortunately I did read the bulk of this book as I was queuing for an event so I might have used some more of the details. Overall though The Economists’ Hour was a fascinating read; I learned a lot more about the economists and individuals involved in directing and dictating the flow of politics and economics throughout the twentieth century, what they did, what they introduced (or not) that shaped how we came to be in our present situation globally. Definitely worth checking out if you’re interested in the topic. Many thanks to the publishers again for letting me read a copy of this book.
ninjalawyer's review against another edition
5.0
This is a book with endless end notes, on a subject (economics) that should be dry, and yet is completely captivating.
The author makes the point that, since around the 1970's, Friedman-style economists have had an outsize influence on public policy. These economists have promoted the view that the best way to drive efficiency is by deregulating markets, and they've been such good ad-men that free markets have become a state religion in most western countries. This is in spite of the fact that efficiency isn't the same as benefiting the largest number of people, inequality has exploded and millions have been cast out of work.
Just to clarify, the author is not anti-market. However, he argues that market efficiency, divorced from the real-world results, should not be (but often has been) the end goal of economics. A more inefficient market that provides a more equal distribution of wages, for example, may be more desirable than one where most people are worse off but a handful are showered in wealth. While the point is only briefly made in the book, he also suggests that lower inefficiency for a goal like this can actually boost overall economic growth.
A clear takeaway is that economics is often thought of as a hard science, but is in reality a soft science (and occasionally the equivalent of astrology). Economists, whether intentionally or not, have frequently started with a conclusion based on whatever ideology they like (lowering taxes is good), worked backwards to come up with a theory and models that supports the preferred conclusions, and then worked with policy makers to subject million in the real world to economic experiments that they pointedly ignored the results of.
The author makes the point that, since around the 1970's, Friedman-style economists have had an outsize influence on public policy. These economists have promoted the view that the best way to drive efficiency is by deregulating markets, and they've been such good ad-men that free markets have become a state religion in most western countries. This is in spite of the fact that efficiency isn't the same as benefiting the largest number of people, inequality has exploded and millions have been cast out of work.
Just to clarify, the author is not anti-market. However, he argues that market efficiency, divorced from the real-world results, should not be (but often has been) the end goal of economics. A more inefficient market that provides a more equal distribution of wages, for example, may be more desirable than one where most people are worse off but a handful are showered in wealth. While the point is only briefly made in the book, he also suggests that lower inefficiency for a goal like this can actually boost overall economic growth.
A clear takeaway is that economics is often thought of as a hard science, but is in reality a soft science (and occasionally the equivalent of astrology). Economists, whether intentionally or not, have frequently started with a conclusion based on whatever ideology they like (lowering taxes is good), worked backwards to come up with a theory and models that supports the preferred conclusions, and then worked with policy makers to subject million in the real world to economic experiments that they pointedly ignored the results of.
laurenfro22's review against another edition
challenging
informative
medium-paced
4.5
“The market economy remains one of humankind's most awesome inventions, a powerful machine for the creation of wealth. But the measure of a society is the quality of life at the bottom of the pyramid, not the top. The willful indifference to the distribution of prosperity over the last half century is an important reason the very survival of liberal democracy is now being tested by nationalist demagogues, as it was in the 1930s.”
will_cotton4's review against another edition
4.0
I didn't agree with all, maybe not even most, of the value judgments in this book, but it was damn entertaining and incredibly dense with information. Hard to put down. Highly recommended.
apatrick's review against another edition
2.0
Nooooooo, you guys, I had to give up! I checked this sucker out and renewed it three times and I still couldn't finish! Listen, the content is really interesting, if you like U.S. history, particularly 20th century. But oh. em. gee. There IS a way to write an academic book without including an endnote for every sentence, my friends. It can be done, I promise. Frankly, I consider it lazy to include interesting information in endnotes. Work that material into the text! Leave your endnotes for citations! If your editor can't help you do it, get a better editor. Or work with a ghostwriter, for the love of all that is holy. It's like Binyamin Appelbaum and Nate Silver have their own little club of how-to-make-inaccessible-subjects-even-more-inaccessible-so-you-can-feel-more-like-a-bigshot.
Eeesh.
Eeesh.
venkyloquist's review against another edition
5.0
Milton Friedman once observed, ““I think the government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem and very often makes the problem worse.” Frenzied advocates of the free market breed pounced on this pronouncement in the same vein a believer entrenches within himself what he perceives to be a gospel. As regulations were systematically relegated to the apex of irrelevancies and the economy, ‘unshackled’, the dark side of capitalism took over the stage and in a macabre dance, decimated in a systematic manner the orderly workings of global markets, gifting to the world the second greatest recession post the Great Depression of 1929. By the time the dust had settled on the endemic practices, real gross domestic product (GDP as adjusted for inflation or deflation, in the United States—declined by 4.3 percent, and unemployment increased from 5 percent to 9.5 percent, peaking at 10 percent in October 2009. Spain, Greece, Ireland, Italy, and Portugal suffered sovereign debt crises that required intervention by the European Union, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and resulted in the imposition of painful austerity measures. The entire financial system of tiny Iceland was almost wiped out and the three largest banks of the country had to be nationalized.
In his brilliant book, “The Economist’s Hour: How The False Prophets of Free Markets Fractured Our Society”, Binyamin Appelbaum dissects in a surgical fashion the events leading to the proliferation of free market tenets and their unintended consequences. The hotbed of the transition from regulated markets to free markets was the Chicago Business School. Luminaries such as Friedman, George Stigler, a friend of Friedman who exclaimed that “competition is a tough weed, not a delicate flower”, and Friedman’s brother-in-law, Aaron Director, took to the pulpit at the University arguing that the only Mantra worth its incantation was economic efficiency. Working overtime, they more than just succeeded in turning legislations such as antitrust mere relics, thereby embellishing corporate concentration and market power. Further, boosting their enthusiasm was works such as ‘The Road to Serfdom’ by Friedrich Hayek, an economist nursing a preternatural revulsion towards any role played by the Government in an economy.
These were the renowned usual suspects. As Mr. Appelbaum illustrates in an adroit manner, there were other brilliant ‘converts’ to the Friedman cause, who did their best to espouse the glories of the invisible hand. For example, Walter Oi a mercurial economist who also was suffering from a serious visual impairment, calculated the economic cost to the nation of removing the labor of would-be workers from national output during their terms of service. Then there was Richard Posner. A scholar and federal jurist Posner postulated in 2001, that, other than the economic approach, there was no longer any other perspective—political or legal—taken seriously in antitrust policy. Mr. Appelbaum citing Posner: “antitrust is dead, isn’t it?”
Mr. Appelbaum also describes in startling detail the brazen conflict of interest in the form of a ‘Revolving Door’ scenario where some economists seem to be pursuing personal causes rather than enhancing the prospects of society. Stellar protagonists such as Alan Greenspan and Lawrence Summers enjoying implicit and back door financial support and hefty consultancies from parties peddling their own interest assisted in no small deal in pushing, or rather bulldozing through, policies characterized by more than just a taint of self-preservation.
As Mr. Appelbaum details in a tragi-comic fashion, the demolition wreaked by the free market mavens was not restricted to the United States alone. A band of economists, popularly termed the “Chicago Boys” (by virtue of their academic affiliation), extrapolated them polices and passion overseas with an overzealous attitude. Chile, Paraguay, Iceland and Taiwan were all experimental terrains where these much vaunted economists could ride rough shod.
As Mr. Appelbaum clinically illustrates, this egregious market mind-set has not only gone awry, but led to situations that are absolutely unenviable. Inequality has exponentially increased in the developed world and millions of jobs lost under an austerity squeeze as countries struggle to maintain a balanced budget. From 1980 to 2010, life expectancy for poor Americans perilously declined, even as the rich lived longer. Meanwhile, the primacy of economics has not generated faster economic growth. From 1990 until the eve of the financial crisis, U.S. real GDP per person grew by a little under 2 percent a year, less than the 2.5 percent a year in the oil-shocked 1970s.
Mr. Appelbaum’ s book is also made memorable, courtesy some extraordinary anecdotes and the description of some lively and singularly peculiar characters. For example, in describing Phil Gramm, a Professor of Economics at the Texas A&M University, and also a Republican Senator, Mark McKinnon remarked, “he looks like a turtle and he sounds like a rooster.” But, “he has an uncanny ability to sense the public mood before anyone else does.” Also a quote by Paul Samuelson on Milton Friedman, “To keep the fish that they carried on long journeys lively and fresh, sea captains used to introduce an eel into the barrel. In the economics profession, Milton Friedman is that eel.” But the last word on anecdotes, sans any semblance of doubt has been accorded by Mr. Appelbaum to the acerbic and irascible George Stigler. “When a reporter observed to Stigler that he had written one hundred papers while another economist, Harry Johnson, had written some five hundred, Stigler replied, ‘mine are all different.’ Stigler, who was tall, observed of the liberal economist John Kenneth Galbraith, also tall, and of Friedman, who was not, ‘all great economists are tall. There are two exceptions: John Kenneth Galbraith and Milton Friedman.’”
As Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz once remarked to Foreign Policy: “Obviously, the costs [of globalization] would be borne by particular communities, particular places—and manufacturing had located [to] places where wages were low, suggesting that these were places where adjustment costs were likely large.” In his work, Mr. Appelbaum brings to bear those very same adjustments which while bestowing untold wealth upon a small concentration of people, has brought wanton grief to a majority of the world population, who are at the time of this writing suffering the impact of a medley of causes with which they had nothing to associate themselves with.
In his brilliant book, “The Economist’s Hour: How The False Prophets of Free Markets Fractured Our Society”, Binyamin Appelbaum dissects in a surgical fashion the events leading to the proliferation of free market tenets and their unintended consequences. The hotbed of the transition from regulated markets to free markets was the Chicago Business School. Luminaries such as Friedman, George Stigler, a friend of Friedman who exclaimed that “competition is a tough weed, not a delicate flower”, and Friedman’s brother-in-law, Aaron Director, took to the pulpit at the University arguing that the only Mantra worth its incantation was economic efficiency. Working overtime, they more than just succeeded in turning legislations such as antitrust mere relics, thereby embellishing corporate concentration and market power. Further, boosting their enthusiasm was works such as ‘The Road to Serfdom’ by Friedrich Hayek, an economist nursing a preternatural revulsion towards any role played by the Government in an economy.
These were the renowned usual suspects. As Mr. Appelbaum illustrates in an adroit manner, there were other brilliant ‘converts’ to the Friedman cause, who did their best to espouse the glories of the invisible hand. For example, Walter Oi a mercurial economist who also was suffering from a serious visual impairment, calculated the economic cost to the nation of removing the labor of would-be workers from national output during their terms of service. Then there was Richard Posner. A scholar and federal jurist Posner postulated in 2001, that, other than the economic approach, there was no longer any other perspective—political or legal—taken seriously in antitrust policy. Mr. Appelbaum citing Posner: “antitrust is dead, isn’t it?”
Mr. Appelbaum also describes in startling detail the brazen conflict of interest in the form of a ‘Revolving Door’ scenario where some economists seem to be pursuing personal causes rather than enhancing the prospects of society. Stellar protagonists such as Alan Greenspan and Lawrence Summers enjoying implicit and back door financial support and hefty consultancies from parties peddling their own interest assisted in no small deal in pushing, or rather bulldozing through, policies characterized by more than just a taint of self-preservation.
As Mr. Appelbaum details in a tragi-comic fashion, the demolition wreaked by the free market mavens was not restricted to the United States alone. A band of economists, popularly termed the “Chicago Boys” (by virtue of their academic affiliation), extrapolated them polices and passion overseas with an overzealous attitude. Chile, Paraguay, Iceland and Taiwan were all experimental terrains where these much vaunted economists could ride rough shod.
As Mr. Appelbaum clinically illustrates, this egregious market mind-set has not only gone awry, but led to situations that are absolutely unenviable. Inequality has exponentially increased in the developed world and millions of jobs lost under an austerity squeeze as countries struggle to maintain a balanced budget. From 1980 to 2010, life expectancy for poor Americans perilously declined, even as the rich lived longer. Meanwhile, the primacy of economics has not generated faster economic growth. From 1990 until the eve of the financial crisis, U.S. real GDP per person grew by a little under 2 percent a year, less than the 2.5 percent a year in the oil-shocked 1970s.
Mr. Appelbaum’ s book is also made memorable, courtesy some extraordinary anecdotes and the description of some lively and singularly peculiar characters. For example, in describing Phil Gramm, a Professor of Economics at the Texas A&M University, and also a Republican Senator, Mark McKinnon remarked, “he looks like a turtle and he sounds like a rooster.” But, “he has an uncanny ability to sense the public mood before anyone else does.” Also a quote by Paul Samuelson on Milton Friedman, “To keep the fish that they carried on long journeys lively and fresh, sea captains used to introduce an eel into the barrel. In the economics profession, Milton Friedman is that eel.” But the last word on anecdotes, sans any semblance of doubt has been accorded by Mr. Appelbaum to the acerbic and irascible George Stigler. “When a reporter observed to Stigler that he had written one hundred papers while another economist, Harry Johnson, had written some five hundred, Stigler replied, ‘mine are all different.’ Stigler, who was tall, observed of the liberal economist John Kenneth Galbraith, also tall, and of Friedman, who was not, ‘all great economists are tall. There are two exceptions: John Kenneth Galbraith and Milton Friedman.’”
As Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz once remarked to Foreign Policy: “Obviously, the costs [of globalization] would be borne by particular communities, particular places—and manufacturing had located [to] places where wages were low, suggesting that these were places where adjustment costs were likely large.” In his work, Mr. Appelbaum brings to bear those very same adjustments which while bestowing untold wealth upon a small concentration of people, has brought wanton grief to a majority of the world population, who are at the time of this writing suffering the impact of a medley of causes with which they had nothing to associate themselves with.
mattlehrer's review against another edition
3.0
Would have been a good long-read article. It’s a convincing argument but I’m not sure it felt stronger reading the book than from the podcast interviews I heard Appelbaum on that convinced me to read it.