Saturday, November 26, 2005
Eat the Rich - P.J. O'Rourke
I learned an important lesson over the last few years: people with whom I had political disagreement may not actually be evil. In fact, their ideal choice of ends may be identical to mine, they could just disagree with the means. I was once too po-faced for P.J., I'd splutter indignently at his jokes - if he's serious, he's the devil, if he's joking... well, he really shouldn't be joking about these things. But you know, they're just jokes, and his belief is in individual freedom, not using poor people as chairs. It's fine.
Famously, I only ended up doing economics because there were too many Christians on my French and Spanish course. I don't really know how people perceive the subject, but if their prejudices are similar to those I clung to until well after graduation, then I'm guessing it's seen as a bit crap. Most people think that economics is like Management Studies, or Accountancy - some way to make a big pile. Actually, it's about resources, and how best to use them. It's as much about relieving poverty as it is about creating wealth. Hah! False dichotomy, those two are, of course, the same thing.
So anyway, this book is better than it has any right to be. Economists are so worried scientists and mathematicians might think that they're a bit girly, they concentrate on making their work as impeneterable and tedious as possible. By contrast, O'Rourke decides to,
"...wander around, gape at things, and simply ask people, 'Why are you so broke?' Or 'How come you're shitting in high cotton?'"
It works. He gets things wrong, but it's fun. There's some good stuff about Sweden in there too, social democracy fans.
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I learned an important lesson over the last few years: people with whom I had political disagreement may not actually be evil. In fact, their ideal choice of ends may be identical to mine, they could just disagree with the means. I was once too po-faced for P.J., I'd splutter indignently at his jokes - if he's serious, he's the devil, if he's joking... well, he really shouldn't be joking about these things. But you know, they're just jokes, and his belief is in individual freedom, not using poor people as chairs. It's fine.
Famously, I only ended up doing economics because there were too many Christians on my French and Spanish course. I don't really know how people perceive the subject, but if their prejudices are similar to those I clung to until well after graduation, then I'm guessing it's seen as a bit crap. Most people think that economics is like Management Studies, or Accountancy - some way to make a big pile. Actually, it's about resources, and how best to use them. It's as much about relieving poverty as it is about creating wealth. Hah! False dichotomy, those two are, of course, the same thing.
So anyway, this book is better than it has any right to be. Economists are so worried scientists and mathematicians might think that they're a bit girly, they concentrate on making their work as impeneterable and tedious as possible. By contrast, O'Rourke decides to,
"...wander around, gape at things, and simply ask people, 'Why are you so broke?' Or 'How come you're shitting in high cotton?'"
It works. He gets things wrong, but it's fun. There's some good stuff about Sweden in there too, social democracy fans.
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