Naked Economics
Charles Wheelan
First published 2002W. W. Norton first edition, 15 September 2002, ISBN 0393049825
What it is.
Start here. An introduction to how economists actually think, written for people who have never taken an economics course and are not planning to.
An introduction rather than an argument, so the closest thing to a thesis is that economic problems are already all around you and the tools only make you see them. Wheelan walks the standard survey, markets and incentives, information, human capital, trade and the Federal Reserve, in plain language rather than in equations. He is also honest about where the lens stops. Economics is not maximizing money, it is maximizing utility, and utility stands in for something nobody has defined.
Working summary · based on Toward's reading notes
The strongest objection
Seeing economics everywhere is useful and not sufficient. Much of what matters about a problem is subjective and does not survive being turned into an equation. Wheelan says so, and it is easy to forget once the lens fits.
Working summary · based on Toward's reading notes
Why it is here.
It is the start here book, and start here is a real job rather than a consolation prize. Everything else on this shelf assumes you already accept that people are worth studying with these tools. This assumes nothing. The more economics you have already had, the less it will do for you.
Working summary · based on Toward's records
Where it sits.
No goal on this site is built on this one.
Read it first if you have read no economics, and skip it if you have had the coursework. The thread it opens and does not close is geography against institutions, which is what Why Nations Fail on this shelf takes up.
Working summary · based on Toward's records