50 economics classics : your shortcut to the most important ideas on capitalism, finance, and the global economy / Tom Butler-Bowdon.

Originally published: 2017.

Edition statements from cover and Preface, page ix.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 363-366).

Economics drives the modern world and shapes our lives, but few of us feel we have time to engage with the breadth of ideas in the subject. 50 Economics Classics is the smart person's guide to two centuries of discussion of finance, capitalism and the global economy. From Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations to Thomas Piketty's bestseller Capital in the Twenty-First Century, here are the great reads, seminal ideas and famous texts, clarified and illuminated for all.

Liaquat Ahamed -- Lords of Finance (2009). Fixed ideas in economics can have disastrous results -- Saifedean Ammous -- The Bitcoin Standard (2018). We need a form of money and store of wealth suited to the digital age -- William Baumol -- The Microtheory of Innovative Entrepreneurship (2010). Entrepreneurs are the engines of growth and must be valued -- Gary Becker -- Human Capital (1964). The most important investment we ever make is in ourselves -- Ha-Joon Chang -- 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism (2012). Many nations succeeded by bucking the rules of orthodox economics -- Ronald Coase -- The Firm, the Market and the Law (1990). Why firms exist; the role of transaction costs in economic life -- Diane Coyle -- GDP: A Brief But Affectionate History (2014). How we measure economic output has consequences for people and nations -- Peter Drucker -- Innovation and Entrepreneurship (1985). Success comes from taking management and ideas seriously -- Niall Ferguson -- The Ascent of Money (2008). Finance is not evil; it built the modern world -- Milton Friedman -- Capitalism and Freedom (1962). Free markets, not government, protect the individual and ensure quality -- J.K. Galbraith -- The Great Crash 1929 (1955). The government's job to stop speculative frenzies ruining the real economy -- Henry George -- Progress and Poverty (1879). The best and fairest way to ensure opportunity is a tax on land -- Robert J. Gordon -- The Rise and Fall of American Growth (2016). Living standards keep rising, but the greatest gains have already happened -- Benjamin Graham -- The Intelligent Investor (1949). We grow in wealth through long-term investing, not speculating -- Friedrich Hayek -- The Use of Knowledge in Society (1945). Societies prosper when they give up planning and control, and allow decentralization of knowledge -- Henry Hazlitt -- Economics in One Lesson (1979). All government economic policies have unintended consequences and can only be assessed over the long term -- Albert O. Hirschman -- Exit, Voice and Loyalty (1970). Consumers have many options to get what they want -- Jane Jacobs -- The Economy of Cities (1968). Cities have always been, and always will be, the drivers of wealth -- Stephanie Kelton -- The Deficit Myth (2020). Governments should not, and need not, hold back on their spending to achieve social outcomes -- John Maynard Keynes -- The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936). To achieve social goals such as full employment, governments must actively manage the economy -- Naomi Klein -- The Shock Doctrine (2007). "Neoliberal" economic programs have proved a disaster for many developing countries -- Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner -- Freakonomics (2005). Economics is not a moral science, more an observation of how incentives work -- Michael Lewis -- The Big Short (2010). Modern finance was meant to minimize risk, but it has only increased dangers -- Deirdre McCloskey -- Bourgeois Equality (2016). The world became wealthy thanks to an idea: entrepreneurs and merchants are not so bad, after all -- Thomas Malthus -- An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798). The world's finite resources cannot cope with an increasing population -- Alfred Marshall -- Principles of Economics (1890). To understand people, watch their habits of earning, saving, and investing -- Karl Marx -- Capital (1867). The interests of labor an capital are perennially in conflict -- Hyman Minsky -- Stabilizing an Unstable Economy (1986). Rather than creating equilibrium, capitalism is inherently unstable -- Ludwig von Mises -- Human Action (1940). Economics has laws which no person, society, or government can escape -- Dambisa Moyo -- Dead Aid (2010). Countries grow and get rich by creating industries, not by addiction to aid -- Elinor Ostrom -- Governing the Commons (1990). To stay healthy, common resources like air, water, and forests need to be managed in novel ways -- Thomas Piketty -- Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2014). The scales of wealth are tipping toward capital; if inequality widens, there will be social upheaval -- Karl Polanyo -- The Great Transformation (1944). Markets must serve society, not the other way around -- Michael E. Porter -- The Competitive Advantage of Nations (1990). Competition and industry clusters make a rich nation -- Ayn Rand -- Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966). Capitalism is the most moral form of political economy -- David Ricardo -- Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817). A free-trading world will see each nation fulfill its potential -- Dani Rodrik -- The Globalization Paradox (2011). Globalization agendas are often floored by national politics -- Murray Rothbard -- Anatomy of the State (1965). The nature of the state is to extend itself, at the expense of citizens -- Paul Samuelson & William Nordhaus -- Economics (1948). A combination of classical and Keynesian ideas creates the best-performing economies -- E.F. Schumacher -- Small Is Beautiful (1973). A new economics must arise which takes more account of people than output -- Joseph Schumpeter -- Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942). No form of political economy matches the dynamism of capitalism and its process of "creative destruction" -- Amartya Sen -- Poverty and Famines (1981). People starve not because there is not enough food, but because economic circumstances suddenly change -- Robert Shiller -- Irrational Exuberance (2000). Psychology, not fundamental values, drives markets -- Julian Simon -- The Ultimate Resource 2 (1996). The world will never run out of resources because it is the human mind that drives advance, not capital or materials -- Adam Smith -- The Wealth of Nations (1778). The wealth of a nation is that of its people, not its government -- Hernando de Soto -- The Mystery of Capital (2000). Clear property rights are the basis of stability and prosperity -- Thomas Sowell -- Discrimination and Disparities (2018). Disparity of economic outcomes does not always mean people have been subject to discrimination -- Richard Thaler -- Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics (2015). How psychology has transformed the economics discipline -- Thorstein Veblen -- The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899). The great goal of capitalist life is not to have to work -- or to take on the appearance of not needing to -- Max Weber -- The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904). Culture and religion are the most overlooked ingredients of economic success.