Basic Economics

By: Clarence B. Carson

Narrated by: Christopher Hurt

This sound primer of basic economics tells all you ever wanted to know but were afraid to ask about money, the market, prices, monopoly, competition, land, labor, capital, entrepreneurs, the Federal Reserve, and the distribution of wealth. For those desiring to educate themselves in economic principles, Carson will give you the tools to debate the warmed-over socialism presented by today’s media.

Carson defines and describes all of the major politico-economic systems of the past one thousand years. Feudalism, mercantilism, free enterprise, capitalism, welfarism, and communism are each allotted a chapter in the concluding section. The basics are all covered in clear, plain English, and Carson makes sure to keep his subject interesting.

©1988 Clarence B. Carson (P)1989 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“Clarence B. Carson has made economics readable for the layman. In his latest book, Basic Economics, Carson does what he does best; he draws on his extensive knowledge of history and free market economic theory to lead his readers carefully through the intricacies and fallacies of economic thought.”

“As narrator, Hurt has a pleasant vocal quality…He succeeds by making the most of his instrument and treating the book almost as if it were a musical score written within that range.”

beyond the band of brothers

a wonderful and educational look at the group of men that winters was with in WWII. I went and bought the PBS series to watch again. A great read and great narrator. highly recommend this. will do Ambrose's book again now.

good book

Very good book. Easy to listen to.
Sowell brings clarity to a subject that is usually poorly understood by most people. The book will take the reader to a different level of comprehension of economics and dispel many well entrenched myths. Should be mandatory reading to anyone in positions of management.

Insufferable narrator, clear and interesting book

I recently started a Master's program in public policy and have become interested in economics. In class, I felt like I was learning the details without understanding the big picture, and I wanted to get more background information about the main schools of economic thought. When I read the reviews for this book, it seemed like conservatives loved it and liberals hated it. I tried finding a book that had more balanced appeal and couldn't find one, so I decided to listen to this one to get a better understanding of the economic orthodoxy and then to listen to Ha-Joon Chang's "23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism" to get the opposing view.

As for this book, first of all, the narrator is insufferable. He comes off as a pompous know-it-all. He never stopped irritating me, and it is a long book. However, what he was narrating was interesting, so I gritted my teeth and kept going.

Thomas Sowell has managed to write a very clear and easy to understand book about economics. He is very convincing on some topics. He thoroughly convinced me, for example, that rent control is a bad idea. Also, I work for a nonprofit, and his analysis of the incentives in the nonprofit sector made me chuckle: they sounded very familiar.

At the same time, his analysis occasionally struck me as oversimplified and biased. The following are a few examples:

* He makes the claim that economists have concluded that FDR's policies needlessly prolonged the Great Depression but then doesn't back it up at all. I was actually quite curious to hear the reasoning behind this conclusion, but it was never given.

* He notes that financial markets raised the price of Brazilian debt after the leftwing Luis Inacio Lula da Silva was elected president, implying that a leftist presidency was bound to be an economic disaster (the book was published in 2004). In fact, Lula presided over huge growth, and Brazil has since become a major player in the world economy.

* He argues that private companies run utilities better than the public sector and gives the example of Argentina as a place where private provision of water was a great success. He does not mention Bolivia, where a private consortium took over water provision, hugely jacked up prices, and caused a widespread public revolt known as "the water war."

* He blames the California electricity crisis on the policies of state government without mentioning Enron's manipulation of the energy market.

* He calls into question whether "dumping" can be proved to exist. He cites some examples where it is hard to prove (if I remember correctly, all were in the context of developing nations dumping products on first world markets), but he does not mention the sale of subsidized American agricultural products in Latin American markets, which is widely viewed as dumping. He rails against agricultural subsidies in other parts of the book, so it seems hard to deny that these products are sold below cost.

Overall, I thought it was a very interesting and well-written book that provides a good primer of mainstream economic thought. It was written before the 2008 crisis, so I'm curious whether any of his thinking has changed since then. At the same time, I'm glad I'm also reading Ha-Joon Chang's book because this one seems oversimplified: examples that don't support his overall thesis are glossed over or ignored.

Interesting and Enlightening, if not Impartial

I read some of the Audible listener reviews before listening to this title and I have to agree with the sentiment that the author has a conservative agenda behind his statements. There are a couple of direct attacks against liberal bastions like the Washington Post and the scorn for any kind of government-sponsored social welfare is rife within the book, but it's overwhelmed by scorn about government intervention in general. The book is packed full of the cold, black and white thinking I've come to expect from economist writers. The author isn't interested in exploring the potential merits of any side other than the one he's taken. Everything is presented as fact and it's up to the reader to question legitimacy. Much of what is presented, however, makes perfect sense and it's tempting to take the author at his word.

more basics

i would hope it would provide more basic facts ,but over all it was good