economics – Christopher Wink

Bullshit Jobs

Two-fifths of jobs in the rich world are bullshit, not including those – such as office cleaners – that service the bullshit jobs. These legal, financial and clerical roles don’t add any economic value. Note the difference between “bullshit jobs” (they’re meaningless) and “shit jobs” (you’re not treated well).

They’re capitalism’s equivalent to Soviet communism’s needless roles to maintain high-employment. Or so argued anarchist-anthropologist David Graeber’s 2018 book Bullshit Jobs. The book came five years after an essay the author wrote on the topic went viral. He struck a chord.

The book’s criticism centered on how much time Graeber spent on definitions for a definitionally murky topic — relying heavily on subjective surveys to define what a “bullshit job” really is. Still the term entered lexicon and so is worth reading. After Graeber’s early death in 2020, I resolved to finally get to it, which I did. Below I share my notes for future reference.

The Hot Hand is real (with the research to prove it)

People in a rhythm get better at whatever skill they’re using.

This intuitive idea was assumed enough that the catchy phrase “the hot hand” traveled from sports to countless other disciplines. Then research seemed to overturn its reality. Decades later, the research proved our instincts out.

That journey and research on streaks makes the bulk of the 2020 book The Hot Hand by sports journalist Ben Cohen. It may not have needed to be a full-length book, but I enjoyed it and appreciated the research he referenced, though much of it was familiar.

More broadly, the author argues our sense of randomness is all wrong. For example, if truly random, a playlist should alternate artists, a roulette wheel can’t have a streak and an immigration judge expects to have an even split of cases accepted and rejected. This confuses the law of small numbers and the law of big ones. It’s also why we are so prone to fall for the hot hand fallacy — and the related gamblers fallacy.

For future reference I share my notes from his book below.

Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century

If we have grown so rich so fast, why do so few of us think we’re living in utopia?

Something started during The Enlightenment, but everything really changed between 1870-2010, what has been called “the long twentieth century.” The world got richer and more technologically advanced at a rate many times faster than in any period of human history.

That’s the focus from economics historic Bradford deLong’s 2022 book “Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century.” This extends Robert Gordon’s effective 2016 book The Rise and Fall of American Growth.

What happened in 1870? Well, deLong argues that we “invented invention,” with the help of the research lab and the corporation. Globalization happened too because, by 1870, “ it became more expensive to conquer than to trade.”

The book is well regarded in economics and history communities that I follow, so I eagerly read and enjoyed it. I recommend it for anyone as nerdily interested as I am. Below I share my notes for future reference.

Is American leadership ‘Adrift’?

The United States remains the central leader in one of the most economically dynamic periods the world has ever known. We lack an organizing principle and shared vision.

That’s the overall argument from Scott Galloway, the business-school professor and pundit, in Adrift, his 2022 book centered around 100 charts on economics, culture and life. It’s a thoughtful, fun and breezy read for heavy material. It reads a bit like a textbook for the digital age.

Below I share my notes for future reference.

Limitless: the history and future of the Federal Reserve Bank

The Federal Reserve Bank of the United States has gone from a 30-year run as quiet and boring to one of the highest profile institutions in the world.

Its unique structure (its a central bank, but don’t call it that) and influential leadership (appointed leaders shaping the economy) bring it scrutiny, especially in a new era of “limitless” resources. Its history and future is the focus of Limitless: The Federal Reserve Takes on a New Age of Crisis, a 2023 book written by New York Times fed reporter (and Pittsburgh native) Jeanna Smialek.

The book’s final quarter features quite a bit of detail into the pandemic era machinations of fiscal policy, which will interest some but was too much for my interests. Still the overarching history and connective argument make it worth the read. Last year, I got but could not will myself through former Fed chair Ben Bernanke’s book on 21st Century Monetary Policy. In contrast, Smialek kept me engaged. The author is a regular on Marketplace, the popular public media business and economics radio show and podcast that I follow. I enjoyed it and recommend it.

Below I share my notes from the book for my future reference.

Keynes Hayek: The Clash That Defined Modern Economics

Fair or not, today’s economic theory gets simplified in popular understanding as a binary between two influential leaders: English economist John Manyard Keynes (1883-1946) and younger Austrian-British economist Friedrich Hayek (1899-1992).

One way to understand economic theory then is understand these two men, and how they debated and intersected. That’s the goal of Keynes Hayek: The Clash That Defined Modern Ececonomics, the 2011 book by British journalist Nicholas Wapshott.

Keynesian economics gets simplified as describing government as the spender of last resort; In the face of recession, government spending can reverse those threats (think of the initial pandemic era); Hayek helped establish the Austrian School of economic theory (which greatly influenced the University of Chicago school, including Milton Friedman), which can be simplified as arguing for government to set the rules and little else. Like so many silly binaries, there are lessons from both.

Below I share my notes from the book for future reference.

Fight Like Hell: under told stories of the union movement

What is culturally and statistically counted as work is a political battle. Housework and prison labor remain murky parts of economic records and worker rights efforts.

That’s a big theme from the 2022 book “Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor” by Kim Kelly, a progressive freelance journalist with a specialist on labor movements (and a fellow Philadelphian). Kelly has called it a “people’s history” of the labor movement. Each chapter is dedicated to a key historical period told through the narrative of lesser-known leaders, with a special focus on women, immigrants and Black and indigenous people. The book added context to my understanding of the country’s labor history.

Below I share my notes from the book for future reference.

The Undercover Economist: notes from Tim Harford’s 2005 debut

“Economics is about who gets what and why.”

It’s a fundamental part of how the world works, so everyone should better understand how an economy works. So argues business journalist Tim Harford in his 2005 debut book The Undercover Economist, informed by his syndicated columns. Published the same year as the breakout success Freakonomics, The Undercover Economist helped establish a category of pop economics nonfiction books to help explain the world. They’re heavily influenced by behavioral economics and mix in lots of real world examples. Harford was part of a wave of writers that brought in greater familiarity with otherwise arcane economics concepts, a trend that has only continued the last 15 years.

That’s fitting a trend to less academic and more practical uses of the field of economics. Keynes wanted economists to be not great theorists but “rather like dentists” to solve everyday problems. Harford has been part of the movement to make it so.

Below I share my notes from the book for future reference.

Free to Choose: Milton Friedman’s 1980 defense of American capitalism

Capitalism exposes inequality. It doesn’t cause it.

That’s among the big arguments that influential free market economist Milton Friedman (1912-2006) made in his bestselling 1980 book “Free to Choose.” By 1980, Friedman was the best-known economist of his generation; In 1962, he wrote Capitalism & Freedom, in 1970 he introduced his influential case for shareholder value and in 1976 won the Nobel Prize in Economics.

The book was published in a period of increased government intervention in the economy, high inflation and economic stagflation in the United States. Friedman’s ideas were seen as a counterpoint to the dominant Keynesian economic policies of the time, and he was part of a wave that was epitomized by the so-called Regan Revolution. The book was also the basis for a ten-part television series of the same name that aired on PBS in 1980. The series and book were well received by the public and helped to popularize Friedman’s views on economics.

See my notes below.

Capitalism & Freedom

Is capitalism the cause of differences or the reason why those differences are so small?

Influential Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman (1912-2006), who is a champion or a scourge depending on your political persuasion, long argued the latter. First published at the height of the Cold War in 1962, Friedman argued in “Capitalism and Freedom” that economic freedom is an essential component of political freedom, and that a capitalist system is the best way to promote both. This book serves as essentially the foundation of his status as a kind of public intellectual, though even his critics must acknowledge he went beyond punditry — he won the 1976 Nobel Prize in economics due to his scholarly work on monetary policy.

Attacks of capitalism often confuse what that economic system causes with what it exposes. As Adam Smith wrote and Friedman quotes: “There is much ruin in a nation.”

I read a 2002 edition, but when it was originally published the book was the beginning of a movement that led to Friedman’s bestselling Free to Choose (first published in 1980 alongside a PBS series of the same name) and is often associated with the Reagan Revolution. Friedman’s work heavily influenced conservative American politics.

In this earlier book, Friedman argues that government intervention in the economy, such as through regulation and redistribution, is detrimental to individual freedom and economic prosperity. He also advocates for the privatization of certain government services, such as education and healthcare.

The book was published during a time of Cold War tensions and the rise of socialist and interventionist economic policies in the United States and around the world. Friedman has lasting influence. For one, his description of monetary policy having “long and variable lags” has been often referenced to this pandemic era. In 1970, his ‘Friedman doctrine’ that companies existed to maximize profit for shareholders came to define the modern era, and experienced a revival 50 yers later.

Read my notes from the book below.