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Comment by Shraal | Hacker News Reader

Am I the only one here who thinks that "Basic Economics" is overrated? I loved the first chapters but I didn't finish it because of his obvious bias against regulations. While I enjoyed his analyses of failed regulations, the book makes it seem like there're no successful market regulation laws in place and every attempt is doomed to be short-sighted like all his examples. This [1] review on Amazon from someone else expresses my concerns in more detail.

Can someone recommend me an alternative book, that at least tries to be a little bit more well-balanced? I'll probably finish this book for the conservative perspective anyway but it doesn't seem like a good starting point despite its name.

[1] https://www.amazon.de/gp/customer-reviews/RTG2TIDQB6AJI/ref=...

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I didn't finish it either, but mostly because of lack of time. However, I was also having an almost visceral reaction to his aversion to regulation, because I was comparing it to the situation that I know in some European countries and his claims seemed to clash with what I knew.

I wouldn't dismiss the book just because of that, but it did make the lecture rather difficult because it was challenging my assumptions and knowledge quite strongly. I guess that's good :-)

I like Ha-Joon Chang's "Economics: The User's Guide" as an introduction to economics. It's understandable, it has plenty of references and is written in a pleasant tone.

> I know in some European countries and his claims seemed to clash with what I knew.

To be precisely, I would say his conclusions and the lack of other perspectives clashes with what I know about economy in European countries because I see how his reasoning makes sense in a vacuum.

> I wouldn't dismiss the book just because of that, but it did make the lecture rather difficult because it was challenging my assumptions and knowledge quite strongly. I guess that's good :-)

Exactly. I want to finish it someday for that exact reason.

> I like Ha-Joon Chang's "Economics: The User's Guide" as an introduction to economics. It's understandable, it has plenty of references and is written in a pleasant tone.

Thanks!

Try "Naked Economics" by Charles Wheelan [1]. In my opinion, he does a good job of providing examples both of failed regulation and also situations where regulation is necessary and beneficial.

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/Naked-Economics-Undressing-Dismal-Sci...

> because of his obvious bias against regulations

Could it be that you, the person who has almost certainly not had the degree and intensity of experience in this field as Thomas Sowell (as so few have), are the one with the bias in favour of regulations that are not strictly necessary?

1. I'm sorry if you misunderstood me and think that I'm downplaying his work in this field. But I'm also kindly asking you to not just argue with appeal to authority [1].

2. Why do you think that I rule out that I'm not biased? If you read my other comment [2], I actually want to finish this book someday to challenge my assumptions and because his critique seemed reasonable! Unfortunately this book seems to paint an incomplete picture of my reality. The economy in my country should be totally unstable because of its regulations according to his views in this book but that's not the case. I want to understand the whole picture and this book falls short of doing it.

3. Why do you think that I'm generally in favor of regulations? It's simply not all black and white.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24041550

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