Arguing with Zombies

Economics, Politics, and the Fight for a Better Future

By: Paul Krugman

Narrated by: Rob Shapiro, Paul Krugman

An accessible, compelling introduction to today’s major policy issues from the New York Times columnist, best-selling author, and Nobel prize–winning economist Paul Krugman.

There is no better guide than Paul Krugman to basic economics, the ideas that animate much of our public policy. Likewise, there is no stronger foe of zombie economics, the misunderstandings that just won’t die.

In Arguing with Zombies, Krugman tackles many of these misunderstandings, taking stock of where the United States has come from and where it’s headed in a series of concise, digestible chapters. Drawn mainly from his popular New York Times column, they cover a wide range of issues, organized thematically and framed in the context of a wider debate. Explaining the complexities of health care, housing bubbles, tax reform, Social Security, and so much more with unrivaled clarity and precision, Arguing with Zombies is Krugman at the height of his powers.

Arguing with Zombies puts Krugman at the front of the debate in the 2020 election year and is an indispensable guide to two decades’ worth of political and economic discourse in the United States and around the globe. With quick, vivid sketches, Krugman turns his readers into intelligent consumers of the daily news and hands them the keys to unlock the concepts behind the greatest economic policy issues of our time. In doing so, he delivers an instant classic that can serve as a reference point for this and future generations.

This audiobook includes a bonus PDF of diagrams from the book.

Critic reviews

In an era when facts are too often disdained and discarded, Paul Krugman wields them like a rapier. A brilliant scholar and polemicist, Krugman's incisive columns are a beacon for anyone who cares about public policy and progressive change.—David Axelrod

Years after appearing in the daily newspaper, Paul Krugman’s columns resonate because he avoids the herd mentality of most journalism. Applying history, math, and humanity, he transforms our understanding of great issues and when writing on economics translates the dismal science into plain English.—David Cay Johnston, recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, an IRE Medal, and the George Polk Award

Great read

Great book that helps you understand the current political economy in the US. It's interesting that some political parties can follow such narrow interests and democracy is a secondary consideration.

Great articles and great narrator

I really can’t think of anything I disliked about this audiobook. Some of the points may come as a shock to those who have been raised on free-market fundamentalism, but Krugman defends his positions quite well. His wittiness may come off as somewhat childish or snarky at times; I found, though, that it helped keep the writing lively, which is a hard thing to do when discussing fairly technical economic concepts.

Terrific

Clear and well thought out. Very thought provoking. FaIrly easy to read even for the non economist lay person.

Excellent

Krugman is an unabashed Liberal. The perspectives that he offers in this book reflect that. For me, that is a positive.

If you are a so-called Conservative, you may find this book infuriating.

Nevertheless, Krugman's fundamental inclination to argue that our society would be better off if we taxed the wealthy more heavily and provided a more robust social safety net for the poor, is something that I find hard to disagree with.

If you argue that "more government" will reduce economic growth, it seems to me that you have to be OK with valuing money more that human lives and human flourishing. That's a hard value choice for me to accept.

So, count me as a sympathetic "liberal" reviewer. If you see that as "socialistic" and potentially evil, I'm truly sorry. We'll just have to accept that we differ on our values and world view.

Not a coherent book but collection of articles

Paul Krugman is a brilliant columnist and economist. Although this book is a collection of articles written over different presidents and does not provide a coherent thought.