The Origin of Wealth, Eric D. Beinhocker

Random House - £25

ISBN: 0-7126-7658-9



R-evolutionary economics

I have a short attention span. I do not like long books. Mr Beinhocker’s volume spans more than 500 pages, including notes and index. I approached with trepidation.

I could not put this book down. Whether or not you are the least bit interested in economics, you will enjoy every page. Well, maybe not the index, unless you also enjoy reading telephone directories.

Not content with exploring economics, Eric D. ranges around the whole of human society, including much of its history and pays a lot of attention to evolution. Indeed, the evolutionary nature of economics is his main theme and he uses actual evolution and computer-simulated experiments to illustrate and support his arguments.

From ‘The Promised Land’ (the world’s biggest garbage dump, located near Manilla), taking in Karl Sim’s block people and Epstein and Axtell’s ‘Sugarscape’ and analysing ‘Big Man’ versus ‘Market’ economies along the way, we are offered a new perspective – Complexity Economics.

I have long wondered why it is that opposing political parties are able to come up with ‘experts’ to support their (often totally opposite) views on how to handle the economy. Surely, I wondered, there must be a ‘right’ answer to economic questions?. Thanks to Mr Beinhocker, I now see that the problem is not the economy but rather the hopelessly unscientific approach that is conventional economics.

The best holiday read I have enjoyed in years.