Talking to my daughter about the economy

An inability to explain to a teenager the fundamental issues of economics reflects badly on one’s own grasp of them. And the failure to inspire youngsters to care about wealth, poverty, power (and their distriburion in society), reveals the instructor’s, or author’s, own lack of appreciation of what makes our social world tick. This book strives to inspire teenagers (and other readers normally disassociated from economic narratives) to care about economic ideas and economic processes by revealing their power over our imagination, beliefs and passions. It does this by means of a narrative of how economic power has emerged from the shadows of political and military might before gradually taking over human societies. The narrative combines history, literature, science fiction films and down-to-earth economic analysis to impress upon teenagers, and various beginners, that economics is an epic drama. Rather than a technical science, it is a battleground on which armies of ideas clash mercilessly and where concepts with a capacity to move mountains emerge; and all that in a war for our own allegiances which are being fought over by powerful interests usually at odds with ours. In addition to its drammatic style and content, this book answers two fundamental questions: How was the modern world formed? And why are the economists’ theories part of the problems that this world is constantly producing, rather of the solutions. In the process, it poses and answers challenging questions, such as: • Why did British colonists invade Australia instead of the Aborigines invading England? • When and how did the primacy of profit come about? • Why could wealth never exist without debt? • From where do bankers derive their exorbitant power? • What is hiding behind economic crises? • Is there hope that humanity will stop functioning like a stupid virus killing the “organism” in which it resides? • What is money and why does it "need" democracy?