Customer Reviews

Economics

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This book is updated every few years and is kept current. Since it is the most widely used survey book on Economics, any person that would like become more economically aware should read this book. Some concepts, like Capitalism, are pretty humpty-dumptish in that the word means whatever someone choosed it to mean. However, for those who are not trying to politicize economics and are willing to look at it for what it is, a social science studying an aspect of human behavior, this book is essential. That is because it is so widely read that most people with some economics training are familiar with the way it uses terms and it provides a common ground for discussion.

The book is excellent in that it takes complex mathematical relationships and by using graphs instead of the formula that create the graphs it is easy to see what is happening with demand curves, marginal utility and other concepts.

The question of whether economics "works" or does not work is silly. It is an attempt to describe an aspect of human behavior and like psychology, sociology, linguistics or an other such attempts, it is incomplete. This book provides a good introduction to the terms, the concepts and the issues of Economics. It is no accident that it is still the most widely used introduction to Economics text.

I read this book in college 25 years ago. Now we know that it doesn't work. But Samuelson ought to be read in self defense so that one knows what the statists in government believe their economic role to be. It's like you ought to read Dr. Spock to learn how NOT to bring up children if you want them to be happy and responsible adults.