ECONOMICS

Economics for Real People

Economics for Real People by Gene Callahan

Introduction

The book Economics for Real People is written Gene Callahan. The 2nd version of the fascinating and interesting economics guide depicts the ideas of Austrian School of Economics. The book is written excellently in an understanding language of a common people. The authors depicts that the economy is not good planning on the Government or economic models, it is rather on human being and their decisions about choices that they make. The author is has presented an excellent introduction to the work (Callahan, 2004). The book is written in the style of Rothbard, and it presents the methodology, economic theory, and criticism of the state policies. The book is an excellent guide for non-economists written in an easy to understand and humorous language.

Discussion

What Economics is?

There is no agreed definition of the subject of economics. Most suggested definitions fail to cover everything that is studied as economics. Thus L. Robbins's famous definition ('economics is the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses') comprehends microeconomics, but not macroeconomics. Some idea of the latter is conveyed by the title of Adam Smith's famous book, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, which appeared in 1776.

All political thinkers are faced by the question of the extent to which their science is distinct from, incorporates, or is incorporated by, economics. Social policy always requires expenditure, and often has economic effects; all policy therefore has an economic aspect, even if it is not concerned with economic ends. Hence the permanent tendency of governments to occupy themselves with questions of economics, resulting perhaps in direct government intervention in the economy, or in a kind of dogmatic non-intervention which has just as large immediate and intended effects.

Historical materialists go further in asserting the interdependence of politics and economics, arguing that political institutions and political decisions are always the effects of economic causes, so that there are no political facts which are not, at some level of explanation, economic facts. On such a view the study of politics might seem to be entirely subsumed under economics, at least so far as concerns explanation and understanding. However, even if historical materialism were true, such a conclusion would not follow. Consider human relations. Conversation and friendship are rationally conducted only by someone who attends to the ...