Let me begin by saying that I am not some ‘lefty’ objecting to some defence of the capitalist system. I might recommend Mark Skousen's 'The Big Three in Economics', which discusses Adam Smith, Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes in some considerable biographical detail but also engages with their economic theories. There are certainly uses for this text but if you're considering listening to it as an introductory text-book of some sort, there are better suited items on this service. Instead I was clobbered with partisan politics. I was hoping to listen to a book discussing the science of economics or a discussion of the ideas and algorithms that make up the discipline and perhaps an overview of common economic terms, that might illuminate the financial news, discussions of the stock market or the Chancellor's Budget Speech. Summarizing in one sentence what he considers economics to be: 'the study of the use of scarce resources', (not his own phrase incidentally) Sowell spends no more time in discussing economics per se but engages in political polemic, contrasting USSR (the only viable - although failed - alternative to laissez-faire capitalism apparently) with an idealised version of US prosperity. This book is neither an introduction to basic economics or, particularly, a citizen's guide.

Read this book, but then find a more liberal economics text to balance your thinking, otherwise you'll be deluded into parroting the neo-cons. There is no such thing as objective economic theory.

It's no wonder the author is employed by a conservative ideological 'think tank'. But if you rely on public services for any part of your day (roads, fire, police, school, safe air food and water, etc) then you will find this book shockingly naive. If you think that anarchy is better than government, and you are a millionaire, this book is for you. Anyone with an education knows the value, and lack thereof, of anecdotes in the social sciences. It is chock full of 'historical' anecdotes to back up the author's ideology. But rather than being fact-based, it is an ideological whitewash that attempts to provide moral justification for the gross inequities of unbridled capitalism. I agree that this is a well-written (and well-recited) book, and worth listening to.

Basic economics thomas sowell review