Pertinent Perils

Book of the Week

Economix starts with an ambitious goal: to explain how the economy works (and doesn’t work). The book presents economic history in the form of a “graphic novel” or, as one reviewer put it, an “adult comic book”. The creativity of the presentation makes the book very engaging, a significant accomplishment for a subject that is often dull. Economix is organized into eight chapters, beginning with the “Invisible Hand” of Adam Smith and concluding with the challenges climate change poses to our economy today. Leaving aside the author’s occasional caustic comments, as he gets into more political topics towards the end of the book, I thoroughly enjoyed Economix. It is a helpful review of how we arrived at our present state of instability and indebtedness and what we might do to change our course. I appreciated the book’s reminders, for example, that Adam Smith feared increasing monopolistic power of big business and its ability to capture government subsidies and stifle competition. The map of environmental disasters was compelling. The book succeeds as a basic primer in economics and I strongly recommend that every small business owner read it.