Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: A Brief History of Capitalism

Excellent read - the author is extremely knowledgeable and able to convey global and geopolitical matters into everyday meaningful events. Highly recommended - I did, to my daughter.

My eldest son (a 30 year old chartered engineer), discovered this book and read it because he wanted to have an understanding of economics. This prompted me to read it, although I did study economics at school sometime last century! This book is an engrossing read, opening my eyes as to why particular economic norms have come about and the far reaching effect they have on life. The author doesn’t shy away from saying it how he sees it, rather than pandering to saying what is perhaps expected of an economist. The book is written in a clear, engaging, conversational style, but never condescendingly so. There are many historical references that illustrate points being made and so makes for an interesting read. Ideas and arguments are carefully set out so that the reader understands what is being said and is left to pause and reflect, before making up his or her mind on the point in hand. It is an eye opening and thought provoking book - recommended.

I have Yanis Varoufakis’ new book, Talking to My Daughter About the Economy, to thank for keeping me up all night reading page and page, to the early hours of the morning, unable to put this book down. Yanis Varoufakis is that rarest of writers who can make the subject of economics interesting. To say this book is a page-turner is an understatement, not because it is a thrilling read with action, but because it is just a beautifully written piece of literature. It is a contemplative work. In this book he attempts to answer the question, “How did we get into this mess?” In answering his question he is thinking through the answer on paper and the result is this book. His tone is pensive, his voice is muted, and his ideas are presented carefully and methodically. That question has been asked before, so his subtitle is “A Brief History of Capitalism,” which is functionally the same. He could have simply answered his question with, “The System,” but that would have been too easy and not enough. So what Varoufakis does is choose significant events in human development, compare those events with responses from other societies, all of which lead to the present economic system. He knows the answer to his question in advance of course — he is after all a leading economic theoretician — so he uses a literary device of answering that question in the first person to his fourteen-year old daughter. Brilliant! His real daughter may not be the intended audience of Varoufakis’ book and may or may not be genuinely interested in Varoufakis’ explanation of how we got here, but we are, because we are Varoufakis’ fourteen-year old daughter. I like to think of this book as “Marx Light” or “Marx 101.” The fact that the cover of this book is in a bright red cover is a tip-off right there. Not that there is anything disparaging about this remark. Better than any other economist, before or since, Marx understood the strengths and weaknesses of Capitalism and his works are read by the movers and shakers in Wall Street (along with Milton Friedman). Varoufakis wisely avoids names and labels in this work. The result is a thorough work which one would be hard-pressed to argue. You could still disagree with his methods or conclusions, but Varoufakis is a good writer and you will still be amazed at literary quality of this work.

Having flunked Economics spectacularly at school, I have always avoided the subject in my adult life. After watching a youtube interview during which this author explained some very complex issues around govt finance, world bank loans, and the plight of his beloved nation (Greece), I realised that I understood every word he said! I was not stupid! I just needed an Economics teacher - this guy is a genius! - who knew how to explain the subject to a disinterested and uninformed audience! Of which I had been one: No longer! The former Greek minister for finance, Yanis Varoufakis - doting father and gifted teacher of Economics - tried to explain, in simple terms, his work to his daughter, who lives in Australia, far from the Greece in which she grew up and knew well as a younger child. He uses stories of personalities she knows well, characters from well-known classical literature and even a prison-of-war camp to explain the quite compex ideas he lays out in plain English for the soon-to-be very informed reader. It feels like one is imvited into an avuncular relationship with the author the entire time, but the sense that he is TALKING TO HIS DAUGHTER is tangible from the beginning to the end. Loved the book, and I now feel qualified to be an adult member of the human race, in 2023! I am confident that, should I decide to pick up the financial times, or a copy of The Economist I would have more than a vague notion of what is written therein. I never felt talked down to, even though the author must have had to break things down quite a bit to make his message understood. Perhaps that is because it is written, primarily for, and to, his daughter. I recommend everyone over 21, read the book, in order to better participate in post-school life! Since many leave school, not really knowing how life works!!! Now, I wish someone would write a book like this for (or about) The Law!

An interesting read. Since listening to the first book, I have enjoyed written work by Yanis Varoufakis. I may need to re-read most of the concepts newly introduced to me but I feel I have grasped a miniscule concept of economy. Not much. The first few chapters were more easier to digest, and the anecdotes are wonderful too. I like that personal touch. 3/5 because the end did not match the end in terms of style.

A slowly-developing explanation for ordinary citizens of it matters not where, how our dynamic commercial / social world is constructed, and how this edifice depends on balancing need, greed and altruism: and how fragile it is, how dependent on optimism and at mortal risk from pessimism...and erroneous algorithms! It's scary stuff, nicely illuminated by analogies with things we know and understand but have never consciously linked. I feel my stance as a Socio-Capitalist, (with Liberal Tendencies, and a trace of nationalism sufficient to give me a sense of belonging) is still viable: but it won't save me, or you, if the socio-economic house falls down. Read, learn, be nervous!

* didn’t realise before I bought it that the book has a beautiful aesthetic. The hardback has a cloth-like texture, and the book has an attached bookmark. * one chapter down, and so far I can say I am ... A) ...really charmed by the writing technique of this author communicating as though he were talking to his teenage daughter. It’s just enough without getting gimmicky or old. It’s actually quite sweet. B) ...speeding through it. The author has a style that is notably clear and straightforward and, at the same time, gripping in a way that draws you in to find out what’s going to happen next. I’m serious. It’s kind of a page-turner ... about economics! C) ...learning lots. The content covers fundamental facts and arguments about economics and history and patterns of human behaviour. It weaves together information I am already familiar with, and perspectives and details that are refreshingly novel to me, in a way that teaches and compels to keep galloping through the book. * The author is one heck of a talented storyteller. * I respect that he is open about his points of view, and neither tries to ‘hard sell’ them or tries to cover up that they exist in order to appease any subsets of readers. Overall - an impressive book. Topical, informative, and a welcome escape from otherwise reading the hysteria of current day news!

The beauty of the writing drawing parallels, analogies and metaphors from literary sources (Marlowe, Goethe, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and the Greek tragedian Sophocles), the clarity of the exposition of economic terms and concepts and the criticism of our market society (capitalism) and its attendant enormous wealth inequality, distortion of our values and undermining the sustainability of our planet provide the character of the concise book. Agricultural production created for the first time the basic element of a true economy that is surplus. The production of agricultural surplus gave birth to writing, debt, money, bureaucracy, armies, clergy and technology. Without debt there is no easy way to manage agricultural surplus. As debt appeared, money flourished. But for money to have value, the state had to make it trustworthy. When we talk about the economy, this is what we are talking about: the complex relations that emerge in a society with surplus. Like any ecosystem, a modern economy cannot survive without recycling. At the heart of recycling is the bank. The banks provide large loans. In the aftermath of the industrial revolution, the economies of the market societies grew enormously and the debt needed to fuel them rose massively as a result. In good times, the economy generates wealth and profits particularly to bankers, entrepreneurs and the financial elite. But the very same process that generates profit and wealth generates crashes and crises including run on the banks. Who can put an end to this dizzying down spiral? Since the nineteenth century when market societies experienced their first slump, the state has been forced to intervene. The state intervenes through a central bank which is something like a state-owned back whose customers are all the other banks.The central bank acts as lender of last resort to normal banks. Where does the central banks finds all this mountain of money? The amazing answer is that it creates it literally out of thin air. We have just mentioned that in our industrialized market societies, boom and bust cycles follow each other with certain inevitability. What I would like to add is that due to our human nature and collective expectations, we accentuate both cycles. When as a group we are optimistic, this optimism is self-fulfilling and self-perpetuating. And when we are pessimistic, this pessimism is similarly self-fulfilling and self-perpetuating. In our industrial societies, humans are continuously being replaced by machines that is there is a diminution, a squeezing out, of humanity from the production process; at the same time we observe an enormous and increasing wealth inequality while through our man-made industrial activities we pollute the environment posing a serious threat to the sustainability of our life giving planet. In this concluding paragraph, we shall examine how rulers and a social minority elites managed to maintain their power through history. By cultivating an ideology which caused the majority to believe deep in their hearts that only their rulers had e right to rule. Organized religion had provided such narratives for centuries. With the emergence of market societies, this ideology, this new secular religion, is economics.