The age of uncertainty

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1. dredmorbiusAug 2019
   Sure: Smith was responding to, and opposing, concentrations of wealth and power and their negative, distortionary and discriminatory impacts on the economy.

   His harshest criticisms were against those concentrations and abuses of power. His strongest and most heartfelt arguments were for the common man. He wasn't some wealth gospel preacher, despite often being portrayed as such. And his attacks on the power and dangers of corporations were well taken.

   J.K. Galbraith's The Age of Uncertainty explores this in depth. As does much of the writing of Emma Rothschild. Among many others.

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2. dredmorbiusMar 2018
   Apologies for the late response, though I've been thinking this over.

   I'll stand by my earlier comment: read the classic economists themselves, directly, if at all possible. Smith, Malthus, Ricardo, Marx, Mill (both John Stuart and David), Carlisle, Toynbee, Marshall.

   You don't need to read all of them or the works in full, but each of these addresses at least in some depth and detail the question of goods and their pricing behaviours, in ways that are not generally addressed today.

   There are overviews and histories of economic thought and its development which should be useful. I've read Heilbroner (The Worldly Philosophers) and Backhouse (The Ordinary Business of Life), both of which provide a broad overview. Ha-Joon Chang has Economics: The User's Guide, which is a pretty good overview of various schools of thought.

   I'm particularly impressed currently by Steve Keen, whose most recent book is Debunking Economics. He's been developing his ideas at a rapid pace and to an extent has overrun what's in the book. He's good to watch though.

   John Kenneth Galbraith tends generally to discuss economics more-or-less in the terms I've been mentioning here, with The Affluent Society and Age of Uncertainty probably being good starting points.

   I'm not much impressed by and generally strongly discount most Libertarian thinking, though if you'd like a sense of what I consider to be bad/poor economic theory, Howard Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson and Murray Rothbard's Libertarian Manifesto might be considerations.

   Hope that helps.

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3. tpeoSep 2017
   I think you give too much credit to economists as propagandists. Pretty much any other kind of social scientist receives way more space in the media than economists do. And an educated layman seems way more likely to be acquainted with the Milgram experiments or with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis than he is to be acquainted with comparative advantage. Specially today. Back in the 1970s you could have seen Milton Friedman and John Kenneth Galbraith exchange passive aggressions through their own TV series (respectively "Free to Choose" and "Age of Uncertainty"). I don't know of a contemporary equivalent.

   Unless you literally mean that they're making justifications for the ruling class and have them as their captive audience. Which, I'm ... rather tempted to agree. Unfortunately, people have a self-serving bias, and like paying people to say what they want to hear.

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4. dredmorbiusNov 2014
   Matt's article (and the linked one of Scott Adams' advice) is a good and basic foundation.

   Adding to the reading list, I'd very strongly recommend the following:

   A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton G. Malkiel lays out the basics of portfolio diversification. http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780393340747-0

   The Great Crash: 1929 by John K. Galbraith tells the story and aftermath of the biggest stock market catastrophe of the past century. It is a slim, highly readable, and incredibly informative book. Parts of it read as if it could have been written yesterday. Much of it provides a background and context on the Crash that corrected a great many misunderstandings and holes in my own knowledge. Galbraith has a dry humor and is a strong (and often disliked by insiders) critic of much of the establishment. Fans of this book are recommended to view his video series The Age of Uncertainty.

   http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780395859995-9

   http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780395259474-2

   http://fixyt.com/watch?v=KGSID_Uyw7w

   And adding to Matt's advice: have savings. The flexibility offered by "fuck you money" as Humphrey Bogart and others have noted is tremendously valuable.

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