Edible Economics: A Hungry Economist Explains the World
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Edible Economics: A Hungry Economist Explains the World
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Description
An insider’s account of the rampant misconduct within the Trump administration, including the tumult surrounding the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021. The relationship between capitalism and freedom has been conflicted and sometimes even contradictory. That’s very different from the story of ongoing freedom that free-market economists say capitalism brings to us.
Sin duda, en los plateamientos del autor subyace un aprecio por el valor de la democracia, el cuidado del medioambiente y la igualdad de género. Being one of the laypeople who thinks of economy only when deciding between a 0.9 kg can or a 300 g can of anchovies in olive oil on a given run to the supermarket, I appreciated how Mr Chang used commonly eaten and popular foodstuff across the world to explain economic theories, political-economic systems, processes, and even an economist's overview of world history from the recent past to the present. Taking the example of the humble anchovy, he tells us how the raw materials based economies were ruined by the surge of synthetic substitutes, as happened to guano, rubber, and dyes, on which economies such as Peru's, Brazil's and Guatemala's were dependent on to prosper, and how this can happen again (and why). That makes it so very understandable, put so simply, than the complex sociological and economical theories most of us would find labyrinthine at best and boring or dry at worst. P130: “[more re climate change] “…we need to drive less in personal vehicles….” And government has to determine better living arrangements for us- so we can walk to stores or use public transportation. This is the same egomania that underlined Stalin and Mao’s collectivization drives that killed millions. Este es el cuarto libro que leo del economista coreano. Él lo califica de extraño, pero fascinante es el adjetivo que le hace mayor justicia.To put it very bluntly, I believe that, in a capitalist economy, unless everyone understands some economics, democracy is meaningless because so many of our decisions are bound up in economic equations.
Chang needed to leave to deliver a lecture at the London School of Economics entitled: “Economics vs Science Fiction – what can each learn from the other?” But before he did, I pressed him on why he insists he remains an “optimist”. His answer combines the grand sweep of history and his own personal experience. “A lot of impossible things have happened. Two hundred years ago, people would have called you unrealistic if you advocated for the abolition of slavery in the US, a hundred years ago they would have called you naive if you supported the abolition of child labour. But these things came about”. Each bite-sized chapter takes the name of a food that, somewhere in the world, is a store-cupboard staple –okra, noodles, anchovies, Coca-Cola – using their histories, recipes and cultural importance to explore a variety of different economic theories. For example, in ‘Strawberry’, Chang explains how this labour-intensive fruit (actually not a berry) has contributed to the rise in low-wage jobs and, later, the automation that is seen as ‘the destroyer’ of those jobs (actually, Chang writes, it isn’t). Un libro escrito con sentido del humor, rigurosidad argumentativa, con alcances literarios y culturales interesantísimos. There has been a lot more industrial policy than people realize. To put it more bluntly, the Silicon Valley would not have existed without US government funding for initial technologies like the computer, the internet, and GPS. All of these were funded by the Pentagon. Semiconductor research was initially funded by the US Navy. For decades, a single, free-market philosophy has dominated global economics. But this intellectual monoculture is bland and unhealthy.This is the intro to economics we all needed 10 years ago in school and it certainly is the one we need now to make sense of all sorts of conversations in the media. Even if none of that sounds particularly interesting to you, it's worth the listen just to scoop up some of the fascinating tidbits (trivia buffs, take note!). Here's some of what I learned: I open every chapter with some story about the food item after which the chapter is titled. It could be about the history of that particular food item; it could be about the relationship between that food item and myself; it could be some important historical event that revolved around that food item. I transform the food stories into economic stories.
- Fruugo ID: 258392218-563234582
- EAN: 764486781913
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