Thomas Carlyle, the Scottish writer and philosopher, called economics the dismal science. I don’t know if you’ll agree but having read economics textbooks, I certainly think they’re dismal. They’re filled with unnecessary complexity, pointless jargon and theories that have been dead and buried for decades. While economics as a discipline has progressed, the textbooks used today are stuck in the dark ages.
Then I came across Macroeconomics: An Introduction by Alex M Thomas and I regretted not having this as my textbook when I was studying. Though it’s meant to be a textbook, it doesn't read like one. It’s a brilliant book that weaves classical economic theories with excerpts from wide-ranging Indian literature to highlight the structural, social and cultural complexities of the Indian economy. It’s one of the very few books to do so.
Apart from just making macroeconomics more relatable Alex introduces an alternative approach to understanding macroeconomics, which questions the dominant (marginalist) approach. This alternate approach is inspired by the works of the old masters like Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, and Piero Sraffa. I learnt a lot while recording the podcast. I hope you enjoy listening to the conversation as much as I enjoyed recording it.
Link to the book: https://www.amazon.in/Macroeconomics-Introduction-Alex-M-Thomas/dp/1108731996
1:27 - About Alex M Thomas
4:51 - What is political economy?
6:35 - Theory of interest rates
10:11- Why should you read this book?
11:29 - The problem with economic teaching
14:41 - How is this book different?
15:41 - The dominant (marginalist) approach
18:57 - How to approach economics
22:32 - The economy as an embedded system
26:10 - Theory of wages
29:52 - Marginalist theory in policymaking
34:15 - Theory of money
44:15 - Modern monetary theory
You can read the full episode transcript here.
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