A Political Economy Thriller

Yanis Varoufakis is like the treacly spread product Marmite – which people either love or hate – there seems no compromise between the two positions.

 I happen to think he’s a very good analyst and writer – if rather too prone to court the headlines for sllck comments.

I had first come across him in 2012 when I enjoyed The Global Minotaur – America, the True Origins of the Financial Crisis and the Future of the World Economy (2011) and had then followed his elevation and performance as Greece’s Economics Minister - for 6 brief months - in 2015 with great interest.

I have just got around to reading his And the Weak Suffer what They Must? – Europe, Austerity and the threat to Global Stability (2016) which clearly draws on his experience of his harrowing 6 months in the eye of the financial and political storm - but which resists the temptation to elaborate on his personal encounters with the various European and international players in that “Drama” (which is actually also the name of a small Greek town very near the border with Bulgaria in which a problem with fuel injection once forced me to spend a night!).

Such an elaboration, he told us, needed a bit more distance – but it was not all that long in coming – in the form of Adults in the Room – published earlier this year which Paul Mason has described as one of the greatest political memoirs…..

Although “And the Weak Suffer…..” has been published for more than a year, it has (if Google is to be believed) attracted surprisingly few reviews.

It seems fairly obvious that Varoufakis has offended so many of the powerful figures in politics and academia that only people such as Mark Blyth and Paul Mason are willing to put their heads above the parapets and write positively about him……

But one fan is an Australian academic whose review of the book on the Open Democracy website is, for me, a model of how a review should be conducted with a focus on both content and style;    

This book is far more than a re-statement of Varoufakis’ 2011 book, The Global Minotaur…but it is that first book which provides the structure here – as a play in three acts.Act One is set in the years 1944 to 1971. When the present global economy was set up at Bretton Woods, the US was gripped by a New Deal fear of international financial chaos but was not prepared to let its dominance of the post-war globe slip in order to generate a truly self-balancing global economy.

This led to the US rejecting Keynes’ plan to construct a genuinely international currency and a genuinely international set of surplus and deficit rebalancing institutions but…….., by investing their own surplus into Germany and Japan in particular, the US was able to re-build Europe and Asia and recreate them – politically and economically – in something like its own image. On the whole, things worked exceptionally well for what we now call the post-war boom (1949– 1971). But when the astronomical expense of the Cold War kicked in and the US stopped running a surplus, the Bretton Woods system simply fell over, leaving the globe in a mess.

 Act Two the US was able to maintain global dominance as a deficit economy. The Nixon Shock of 1971 produced the stagflation sickness of the 1970s which was then ‘cured’ in the 1980s by the staggering success of financialized and transnationalized corporatism. But the architecture of the post-Nixon area was inherently unstable, inherently disconnected from sustainable human and economic realities, and it all came crashing down in 2008.

 Act Three starts in 2008. Here, after acts one and two have both ended in tears, the global economy is terminally wounded and must either die or face radical reconstructive surgery. Now, despite the various appearances of recovery, it is simply the case that the mechanisms and institutions that used to keep the global economic order in some sort of functional balance have all failed. We have only just started Act Three, but it could end quickly, and violently.

The reviewer than asks one of the questions so few bother to – “So, how does “And the Weak Suffer as they Must?” take up this narrative and tell us things we did not know and need to know now?” 

Reading “And the Weak Suffer as they Must?” is like reading a gripping thriller. It is a page turner because the plot itself is a relentless sequence of astonishing twists and turns driven by the cunning ingenuity and hubristic folly of its key protagonists.Even if you know a lot about the Eurozone, Varoufakis’ carefully researched account, with its vivid glimpses into the motivations and outlooks of key players, and its expansive breadth in appreciating the global dynamics pressuring localized decisions, is unerringly startling.

Yet it is no novel. Varoufakis’ book has something made-up stories can only mimic; the texture of real history. But here is the key thing that Varoufakis has so carefully noticed. In the texture of real history, convenient illusions are typically a great deal more influential in the circles of power and normality than is truth.

It is for this reason that, in real history, truth usually seems stranger than fiction. And yet, Varoufakis also notices that the texture of history is such that truth always has the last say, no matter how hard the powers of illusion and convenience seek to keep the dream alive by helping us to stay asleep. Varoufakis’ insight into the relationship between what normal mainstream people and the great and powerful want (even need) to believe, and what is actually going on, is a key feature of the significance of this book.

He weaves his intricate and tense narrative fabric out of illusion and reality (the texture of real history) by constantly shifting our gaze between three interconnected focal lengths.

- With the first, Varoufakis enables us to see how the world looks through the myopia of the common man’s desire to doggedly hope that our leaders know what they are doing while we just get on with our lives. This myopia is savagely reinforced by the news media and integrated with the myopia of European high power.And that high power cannot see past the end of its own nose, defined as it is by the bureaucratic echo-chamber of self-perpetuating institutional power. 

- This short-sighted focal length insight is then overlaid with a 20 20 focal length perspective provided by Varoufakis’ forensic knowledge of how Eurozone power actually functions. Here we get a nauseating sense of how badly awry things are when very basic macro-economic realities are simple banished from the ‘negotiating’ table laid out by the powers that be. 

- This perspective is in turn overlaid with a telescopic focus, the far-sighted and sweeping historical panorama which shows us why the Eurozone is what it is. This enables us to see – in the one account – the disjunction between ‘normal’ financial and public affairs orthodoxies, the ‘realism’ mandated by prevailing power interests, and what is actually happening to Europeans.

This is one of those books which needs to be read a second time – and more closely…..and rates up there along with Mark Blyth’s Austerity – the history of a dangerous idea (2013). In a few months, another (smaller) book will come from Varoufakis. I already have the German version which is called “Time for Change; how I explain the economy to my daughter”. The English version bears the title “Talking to my daughter about the economy; a brief history of capitalism”

A Varoufakis Resource

https://www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/; his website

https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/paul-tyson/varoufakis-%E2%80%93-new-kind-of-politics (2015); a profile of the man
The Global Minotaur - the full book!! Which is one of the very few which clearly explains the working of the global economy of the past 50 years. It succeeds simply because, for once, an economist has the courage to put the story in a geopolitical context.  

Reviews of "Adults in the Room"

https://www.adamtooze.com/2017/07/01/reading-varoufakis-frustrated-strategist-greek-financial-deterrence/ a sympathetic review 
https://adamtooze.com/2018/02/24/europes-political-economy-reading-reviews-varoufakiss-adults-room/; a good overview of reviews of "Adult in the Room", structured by ideological slant

https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/paul-tyson/adults-in-room-by-yanis-varoufakis-london-bodley-head-2017; a good review of his latest book
http://www.cadtm.org/Yanis-Varoufakis-s-Account-of-the; a serial critique of Adults in the Room 

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/may/03/yanis-varoufakis-greece-greatest-political-memoir; Paul Mason's review of Varoufakis' expose

https://verfassungsblog.de/losing-to-the-european-union-a-review-of-yanis-varoufakis-book-adults-in-the-room/; a critical assessment from a Greek centrist

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/06/yanis-varoufakis-latest-eurogroup-statement-keeps-greece-on-the-austerity-rack.html; an example of some of YV's doodles!

"With a little help from my Friends"

Friends of this blog have noticed my silence these past few months….and I’m grateful for signs that readers haven’t completely given up on me…

And it’s not just writing that I’ve found difficult – these past few months I’ve found that books have also become a big turn-off.

Perhaps it was the burst of reading and writing I did in the autumn for the blog series about the State and pubic management literature which finished me off - somehow I can’t take any more the dry, reified technicalities which most non-fiction work offers these days.

That, you may say, surely leaves the way open for novels – a genre I’ve admitted I rarely feel partial to (it’s 8 years since I last tried to give a sense of my favourites in that genre) And indeed I did reread with interest last month Alan Massie’s classic A Question of Loyalties and Bordeaux trilogy as well as some John le Carre novels last week……

It was perhaps a hopeful sign this week that some authors actually started to speak to me again…

-       Yanis Varoufakis’ And the Weak Suffer What They Must? – Europe, Austerity and the threat to global stability was the first voice to try to cajole me out of the lethargy which has been like a funeral pall these past few months. I had started the book last year, rediscovered it in a friend's house in April and found it a gripping read - effectively an update of his "Global Minotaur", I then moved onto the more autobiographical “Adults in the Room – my battle with Europe’s Deep Establishment” (2017) which is a "kiss and tell" about his 6 months' spell as Greek Minister of Finance (the phrase "Glasgow kiss" comes to mind!). The reviews contained in the 2 links give some of the essential background if you’re not already familiar with this controversial writer. I like the historical sweep and biographical tone of his writing but know that many find him a bit...well.... "showy"….I've attached at the bottom a short Varoufakis resource which includes important critiques of this latest book (and also Varoufakis' response to the more significant critiques)  

-       And a book about healthy eating and living which has been lying on my shelves for more than a decade also had the tone and voice I seem to need these days - and led me back to the little library I have of Michael Pollan’s superbly written books eg In Defence of Food and Food Rules – let alone his The Botany of Desire (2001) a foretaste of his latest book - How to Change your Mind – the new science of psychedelics

These days, I need writing which jolts me – not for its own sake but to help first identify minds which look at the world in original ways but which also understand that clear language is an essential tool for such originality…Recently deceased essayist Tom Wolfe was a favourite of mine ever since I first read his Mau Mauing the flak catchers in 1970 but the “creative writing” courses which have contaminated journalism in the past few decades have made me suspicious of even good journalists these days. James Meek remains an exception for his ability to reduce economic complexities to 5 or 10 thousand word essays – ditto Jonathan Meades for his forensic analyses of cultural issues.

Varoufakis and Pollan are, for me, all too rare examples of the sort of writing which is needed if authors are to stand out against the verbiage and noise which assails us everywhere these days………

The title is that of a famous Beatles song whose lyrics can be read here -https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/beatles/withalittlehelpfrommyfriends.html

A Varoufakis Resource

https://www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/; his website

https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/paul-tyson/varoufakis-%E2%80%93-new-kind-of-politics (2015); a profile of the man

Reviews of "Adults in the Room"

https://www.adamtooze.com/2017/07/01/reading-varoufakis-frustrated-strategist-greek-financial-deterrence/ a sympathetic review 

https://adamtooze.com/2018/02/24/europes-political-economy-reading-reviews-varoufakiss-adults-room/; a good overview of reviews of "Adult in the Room", structured by ideological slant

https://www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/2018/03/07/was-defeat-inevitable-a-review-of-adam-toozes-meta-review-of-adults-in-the-room-1/ Varoufakis’ detailed reply to these critiques

https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/paul-tyson/adults-in-room-by-yanis-varoufakis-london-bodley-head-2017; a good review of the book

http://www.cadtm.org/Yanis-Varoufakis-s-Account-of-the; an important serial critique of "Adults in the Room" from someone on the Syrizan Left. Its first part contains one of the few exposes of Varoufakis' basic negotiating strategy you will find in the English language

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/may/03/yanis-varoufakis-greece-greatest-political-memoir; Paul Mason's review of Varoufakis' expose

https://verfassungsblog.de/losing-to-the-european-union-a-review-of-yanis-varoufakis-book-adults-in-the-room/; a critical assessment from a Greek centrist

https://www.ft.com/content/65e5c4ee-2ffc-11e7-9555-23ef563ecf9a; FT review

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/06/yanis-varoufakis-latest-eurogroup-statement-keeps-greece-on-the-austerity-rack.html; an example of some of YV's doodles!

For those who want an independent "take" on the greek economy of the past decade or so, I strongly recommend this blog from a retired German banker whose marriage takes him frequently to Greece,,,,

The Global Minotaur

A blog with a good search facility is a fantastic resource - able to summon up a vaguely-remembered reference. A few days ago, I realized that I had forgotten the full significance of Nixon’s decision in 1971 to break the connection with gold which had been agreed in 1944 at the Bretton Woods Conference. I remembered that Yanis Varoufakis had written a powerful book about it in 2011 - The Global Minotaur -America, the true origins of the financial crisis and the future of the western economy – but it was inaccessible up in my mountain house. I googled….to discover that the entire book is now available to be downloaded (just click the title).

Varoufakis is a Greek economist – which offers two reasons for expecting a badly-written book….economists seem almost genetically incapable of expressing themselves clearly; and English is not his natural language. But the book is a joy to read – not least when he makes use of Greek mythology to illustrate a point. He clearly had good proof-readers….

I generally try to keep notes on key books – which are better written in hand than cut and pasted (our memory more easily retains what we take the trouble to write out in long-hand). But all too often I succumb to the temptation of cut and paste – as now from a very useful summary of the book 

The theme of the book is very well laid out in the introductory chapter. The author looks at six explanations which have been offered for the crisis but finds them useful but insufficient: (i) a failure to understand risk; (ii) regulatory capture; (iii) irrepressible greed; (iv) cultural origins (Anglo-Celtic  beliefs in flexible labour markets, etc.); (v) toxic theory (efficient markets hypothesis, rational expectations, etc.); (vi) systemic failure of capitalism, the role of the USA in financing its debts and deficits from the surpluses of Germany and Japan. 

Chapter 2, ‘Laboratories of the Future’, provides a brief historical account of the development of capitalism á la Marx, the role of crises, Goodwin’s predator prey model, and the role of finance in modern capitalism with the ability to create bubbles, and the end of the Gold Standard after the 1929 Great Crash.

 Chapter 3, ‘The Global Plan’, provides a historical account of the Marshall plan to save global capitalism, the breakdown of the Bretton Woods agreement, the ending of the US dollar’s convertibility to gold in 1971, and the ‘surplus recycling mechanism’: the absorption of surpluses created in Japan and Germany by the USA. Varoufakis argues that the European Union was a clever US plan to bring Europe into the US axis of economic influence. He ignores the view that the EU was meant as a third force: to stand against the USA (a view strongly held by Charles de Gaulle) and as a bulwark against communism. 

Chapter 4, ‘The Global Minotaur’, discusses the role of the USA in the global economy. The author argues that the major flaw in the Bretton Woods agreement (similar to a major flaw in the European Union) was that there was no automatic global surplus recycling mechanism. In the early post war years, the USA recycled its surplus dollars to Japan and Germany (especially) under the Marshall Plan. However, after the end of convertibility of the dollar to gold, the USA had increasing deficits financing wars in Vietnam and South East Asia. Varoufakis argues that the USA persuaded OPEC to raise oil prices (as they are denominated in US dollars) which would increase the demand for US dollars.

The rest of the world continued to finance the US deficits as the US dollar was still regarded as a reserve currency (although later the Europeans would have liked to make the Euro the reserve currency). The US economy was expanding, with stagnating real wages and increasing profitability that led to an inflow offoreign capital. The cheap loans that the USA made to Soviet satellites in the 1960s became a burden when interest rates soared under Volcker’s regime of high interest rates. This, Varoufakis suggests, led to discontent in the Soviet satellite states that eventually led to the demise of the Soviet Union. This is an interesting twist on the usual interpretation of history. In

Chapter 5, ‘The Beast’s Handmaidens’, Varoufakis argues that the Europeans, Irish, British, and Japanese were in awe of the American ‘great moderation’and happily followed US supply-side economic policies. Wall Street, is for Varoufakis, a ringleader of the handmaidens engaged in a roller coaster ride of mergers and take-overs. The development of various ‘clever’ derivatives (CDOs and CDSs), that were supposed to remove (reduce?) risk from financial markets, expanded at an almost exponential rate. This expansion helped the asset price bubble supported by ‘toxic theory’ that suggested that markets were efficient and bubbles did not exist. Free markets reigned supreme with the growth of Thatcherite and Reaganite governments.

Huge capital flows from Germany, Japan, and China fed the financial booms in Wall Street and supported the twin deficits. In 2005 Paul Volcker had foreseen the impossibility of a never ending increase in debts being funded by foreign capital flows: ‘The difficulty is that this seemingly comfortable pattern can’t go on forever’ (p. 145). Curiously, the author does not discuss the Asian Crisis of 1997 which was a fore-runner to the GFC. 

Chapter 6, ‘The Crash’, provides a blow by blow account of the early stages of the crisis in 2007, the collapse of Bear Stearns, problems faced by BNP Paribas, and the Swiss UBS. In December 2007, President Bush (a free marketeer par excellence) intervenes to save house owners from foreclosure and the Federal Reserve (the Fed) steps in providing (almost) unlimited credit to the financial system. By September 2008, Lehman Brothers collapses as the US government refuses to save it. This is often taken to be the start of the GFC. Several European banks and finance houses that held ‘toxic assets’ are in trouble and the whole western world is in a tailspin, with central banks suddenly doing an about-turn on monetary policy (usually by interest rate management) and no longer targeting inflation.

During the crisis, several banks (and car manufacturers) were nationalised but as things got better the banks were denationalised and back in the driving seats! ‘In short, socialism died during the Global Minotaur’s Golden Age, and capitalism was quietly bumped off the moment the beast ceased to rule over the world economy. In its place we have a new social system: bankruptocracy — rule by bankrupted banks … ’ (p. 167).
 The financial crisis spread all over the western world with declining GDP and increasing unemployment, and even the developing world found its growth rates slowing down. Tiny little Iceland went through a dramatic crash! European Union countries, especially Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain (PIIGS), have been experiencing a continuing recession with their banks and financial houses facing bankruptcy, and the existence of the Euro is under continuing threat. The UK disposed of its Labour Government and replaced it with a coalition of the Conservatives and Social Democrats, which imposed austerity measures that have led to a double dip recession. These economic crises have led to political crises, and that is still continuing.

Chapter 7, ‘The Handmaidens Strike Back’, turns to the methods employed by the USA and European Central Bank to attempt to rescue countries in crisis and the banking system. Varoufakis argues that the Geithner-Summers plan of 2009 of creating a simulated market for CDOs was essentially a method of helping the banks to convert toxic assets into ‘clean’ assets helped by the Fed and the Treasury. 

Chapter 8, ‘The Minotaur’s Global Legacy’, discusses the symbiotic relationship between Japan and the USA. The post-war growth of the Japanese economy was sponsored by the USA, Japanese exports were purchased by the USA, and in return the Japanese recycled their surpluses by investing in the USA. The Japanese boom came to an end with a collapse in the housing and asset price bubbles in the early nineteen-nineties, and it faced a liquidity trap situation. (It is interesting that the Japanese experience of loosening monetary policy for several years did not help the economy to come out of the recession. It apparently did not warn the IMF and other central bankers that simply loosening monetary policy would not cure the underlying problems of the global crisis.) The European Union provided Germany with an expanding market for its exports, leading to current account deficits in the other European countries. This was continued with the introduction  of a fixed exchange rate within the European Union by the introduction of the Euro (except for the few countries that refused to join, especially the UK).

The US financial crisis spread throughout Europe, but the policies introduced by the European Central Bank failed to stave off disaster for Greece, and now other countries. This, he argues, is because there was no ‘surplus recycling mechanism’ in the European Union with fixed exchange rates within the Euro countries: the large surpluses of Germany were not being recycled to the remaining members of the EU.

His solution to the EU crisis is based on three elements: first, the ECB would assist banks to write off the debts of deficit countries; secondly, the ECB would take on significant amounts of debt financed by Euro Bonds (not individual country bonds); thirdly, the European Investment Bank would invest in the deficit countries. The author does not discuss the necessity of a unified fiscal authority that acts as an equalising agent to help out the poorer states in the Union. The chapter ends with a brief discussion about whether China would be able to save the world by providing an expanding market. 

Chapter 9, ‘A Future without the Minotaur?’ argues that the crucial problem of the world economy is the absence of a ‘global surplus recycling mechanism’ (GRSM). For some time, the USA managed to have a surplus which it recycled to Japan and Germany (post-World War 2), then when it created large deficits with the wars in South East Asia, it left the gold standard and was being supported by the surpluses of Japan and Germany. But as a result of the crisis the US economy contracted and that affected the German, Japanese and Chinese economies. Can the Chinese economy take over the role of the Global Minotaur (the USA)? His argument is a loud, NO! He favours Keynes’s policy prescription in the 1940s of an International Clearing House with its own currency, the Bancor.

Other reviews

https://nomadron.blogspot.com/2017/08/an-economic-thriller.html

https://www.salon.com/2018/06/09/how-the-greek-debt-crisis-exposed-the-global-economy-as-a-giant-con-and-led-to-donald-trump/

https://www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/2014/05/22/a-review-of-the-global-minotaur-2nd-edition-from-an-australian-perspective-by-paul-tyson/#top

Reading Week - II

The last post identified three categories in my library – “so far unread”, “done and dusted” and “virtual”. But I now realise that there is an “in-between“type – namely the books I hadn’t finished despite recognizing their significance, Let me give a couple of examples….

The first is The British Regulatory State – high modernism and Hyper-innovation; by Michael Moran (2003) whose first 60 odd pages I clearly read with great interest some years ago - since those pages in the copy I found in my library are scored with strong pencil marks. Perhaps the recipe was too rich since the final two thirds seems unread – but I was deeply impressed when I rediscovered it last week.

All previous books I’ve read about British politics (and I’ve read quite a few!) focus almost exclusively on what has been called “high politics” ie the high and visible institutions of the State. “Low politics” covers the professional associations (eg health and financial), local government and all their inspectorates and is pretty technical – and that is the focus of Moran’s book.

A fair number of studies have been made of this field but it is one which tended to fly under most people’s radar until the publication of a book by Majone in 1994. The new interest reflected the huge privatization programme which started in the UK in the 80s and had reached global proportions by the millennium. Moran was one of the best (if rather low-profile) UK political scientists with a focus much wider than most such academics.

Yanis Varoufakis’ And the Weak Suffer what they Must? (2016) is the second example.  From the start I recognized that this was an extraordinarily well-written and seminal book - but I can’t remember actually finishing it – although I wrote about it a couple of years ago as if I had. It’s the problem of having books scattered in several places. I know I picked it up again last year in a friend’s house on the coast of the Moray Firth in the North East of Scotland whose taste (the friend’s!) also includes Varoufakis – and good food and wine!!

For me, Varoufakis is one of the finest writers of non-fiction prose – and, earlier this year, I tried to explore what it is about his writing that is so good –

What makes Varoufakis' various books such excellent reading is the sheer originality of his prose –showing a mind at work which is constantly active…...rejecting dead phrases, clichés and jargon… helping us see thlngs in a different light..... using narrative and stories to keep the readers’ interest alive…He's in total command of the english language - rather than, as so usual, it in control of him.....

You don’t expect to find good prose in the “Further Reading” section of an economics textbook, but just see what Varoufakis does with the task…… 

The first two links in this section about Varoufakis give a fairly extensive reading list about the man if you want to read more….

A better economics

No sooner was my post about The Global Minotaur up than I found another of Yanis Varoufakis’ books freely available on the internet – this time a very original Foundation of Economics – a beginner’s companion (1997). It links nicely to a post last month about populism which had a little section dealing with the state of economics readers may have missed -

2008, of course, should have been the death knell for economics since it had succumbed some decades earlier to a highly-simplified and unrealistic model of the economy which was then starkly revealed in all its nakedness…..Steve Keen was one of the first economists to break ranks very publicly way back in 2001 and to set out an alternative - Debunking Economics – the naked emperor dethroned. This coincided with economics students in Paris objecting to the homogeneity of syllabi and reaching out to others – creating in the next 15 years a movement which has become global

This is a good presentation on the issues (from 2012) - and I am now reading an excellent little Penguin book The Econocracy – the perils of leaving economics to the experts by Joe Earle, Cahal Moran and Zach Ward-Perkins (2017) from their experience of stirring things up on the Manchester University economics programme. The book’s sub-title says it all!
Dani Rodrik is one of the few economists with a global reputation who has bothered to give them support (Ha-Yoon Chang is another) and indeed Rodrik published an important book recently reviewing the state of economics - Economics Rules – the rights and the wrongs of the dismal science; (2016) which was nicely reviewed here. Clicking the title gives you the full text – and it seems a very good read

The Financial Times recently reviewed several other such books - so the situation is not beyond repair but we have to be realistic. Academic economists have invested a lifetime’s reputation and energy in offering the courses they do - and neither can nor will easily offer programmes to satisfy future student demands for relevance and pluralism….. chances are that the next cohort will be more pliable... 

The excerpt suggested that Steve Keen was one of the “first economists to break ranks in 2001” – in the sense of presenting a wholesale critique of the economics discipline. But Varoufakis’ Foundation of Economics – a beginner’s companion was published even earlier - in 1997. And his “Further Reading” section – a veritable model of a bibliography – includes critical books from the 1970s and one from the 1950s.

I know how boring economic writing is – but it is time we understood that commentators, business people and governments make the subject boring for a very good reason….It makes us apathetic. - and less inclined to challenge the system...

I was once, if briefly and somewhat under false pretences, an economics lecturer – but my financial illiteracy is almost criminal but not, sadly, at all unusual. Most of us seem to lack the patience to buckle down and take the time and discipline needed to understand the operation of the system of financial capitalism which now has us all in its thrall. We leave it to the "experts" and have thereby surrendered what is left to us of citizenship and political power.

What makes Varoufakis' various books such excellent reading is the sheer originality of his prose –showing a mind at work which is constantly active…...rejecting dead phrases, clichés and jargon… helping us see thlngs in a different light..... using narrative and stories to keep the readers’ interest alive…He's in total command of the english language - rather than, as so usual, it in control of him.....

You don’t expect to find good prose in the “Further Reading” section of a book, but just see what Varoufakis does with the task…… 

The main reason for writing this book was a lack of sources to which I could refer my students for a more wholesome diet than that offered by conventional textbooks. The problem with books and articles which treat their reader to the fascinating debates is that they are too hard for beginners; especially for today’s university environment which is more demanding on first year undergraduates’ time than once was the case. Thus in order to achieve maximum emphasis I will confine myself to a small number of suggestions for further reading. 

The one book you must read First, I must recommend Robert Heilbroner’s bewitching introduction to the evolution of economic ideas entitled The Wordly Philosophers (1953). If you are to read one book beyond the standard economics textbook (and perhaps the one you are holding), attempt this one; you will not regret it.

Textbooks The first economics textbook which set the scene for today’s multi-colour glossy door-stops was written by Paul Samuelson (first published in 1948). It is entitled “Economics” - and is the most famous text since the Second World War and, still, the most interesting (notwithstanding my overall displeasure with economics textbooks). All the textbooks have since attempted to emulate Samuelson and, as is always the case with imitators, they succeeded only partially. Those of you with a sense of textbook history will benefit from reading Samuelson’s mega-hit.

An economist’s ambition I don’t care who writes a nation’s laws—or crafts its advanced treatises — as long as I can write its textbooks.Paul Samuelson 

If you want something more contemporary, helpful on a day-to-day basis (especially for first year economics students) and with an appreciation of the limitations of economics and the importance of history and political debate, try the large (though not expensive) volume which was put together by the economists at the Open University. Being part of a distance-learning institution, the Open University team edited a book that students can read independently as opposed to a reference manual to be consulted after a lecture. Its title is Economics and Changing Economies (published by the Open University in association with Thomson Business Press in 1996). It contains chapters on everything that you are likely to encounter in your first (perhaps even your second) year as an undergraduate and each topic is treated sensitively and with a humility that is uncommon (unfortunately) amongst economics texts. If you want to improve your essay skills and dazzle your tutor with your command of particular topics, don’t miss this book.

If you wish for something smaller and somewhat simpler (e.g. if you are an interested general reader rather than a student worried about particular assignments), I suggest Robert Heilbroner and Lester Thurrow’s Economics Explained (Simon and Schuster, 1994). On the other hand, if you want a ‘cutting-edge’ neoclassical textbook, I find Robert Frank’s Microeconomics and Behavior (McGraw-Hill, 1993) to be the most (although still insufficiently) open-minded of the introductions to neoclassical thinking.

Unconventional textbooks. I will mention only two. For a holistic, open-minded and rather comprehensive approach to economics, I suggest Vicky Allsopp’s Understanding Economics (Routledge, 1995). Allsopp manages to remain well within the mainstream while reorganising the various topics in such a way as to make it easier for the beginner to see economic thinking as more than technical gymnastics. For instance, she offers her readers a chapter on ‘Law, custom and money’ which is a far better introduction to the concept of money (not an easy one!) than the standard chapters on money demand, money supply, assets, etc. which pollute most textbooks. Additionally Allsopp offers a comprehensive chapter on ‘Investment’, a much neglected yet crucial topic.T

The second suggestion here is one for those of you whose appetite was whetted by the glimpses of non-neoclassical economic theory in this book. If you wish to explore those ideas further, a good place to start is Malcolm Sawyer’s Introduction to Radical Economics (Macmillan, 1989). There you will find simple introductions to the Ricardian, Marxist, Neo-Keynesian and Neo-Austrian ideas mentioned in this book’s more critical chapters (primarily Chapters 6 and 7).

The road to paradise Let’s face it: economics is boring most of the time. Economists’ best efforts (of course I include myself in this sad category) are unlikely to offer excitement and reading pleasure for more than a few moments. To punctuate the boredom, I suggest that you move to the borderline between economics and the other social sciences. That is the way, if not to heaven, to less arid fields of thought.Looking at books I enjoyed as a student, one book whose effects I have tried to emulate here is Economics: An anti-text, edited by Francis Green and Peter Nore (Macmillan, 1977), a book devoted to countering the brainwashing of economics textbooks.

I also recall fondly another book  whose influence stays with me today: Ed Nell and Martin Hollis’s Rational Economic Man (Cambridge University Press, 1976). I remember it was hard-going in parts but lucid and simple, as well as very exciting, in other parts. Much of my Chapters 4 and 11 have been inspired by that book.
 Unfortunately time has left its mark on it and it will perhaps seem somewhat dated to a fresh pair of eyes. None the less it may still be a good idea to borrow a well-thumbed copy from a library for perusal. Since then Nell and Hollis have published other books which are more up to date. Nell’s Making Sense of a Changing Economy: Technology, markets and morals is an interesting read (Routledge, 1996). However, again with a view to narrowing down your ‘shopping list’, I want to urge you to read some of Hollis’ work. (If you could see and hear me I would be gesticulating very energetically in support of this recommendation!)
Although not an economist (Hollis is a philosopher), his writings pack great insight and inspiration for students of the economy. Have a look at his enticing (and easy-going) The Philosophy of Social Science: An introduction (Cambridge University Press, 1994).

And if you feel more adventurous and altruistic to your future self, tackle two more of his books: Reason in Action (1996) is a collection of articles on many philosophical issues central to economics (e.g. the free-rider problem) whereas The Cunning of Reason (1987) is a wonderful investigation on what it means for a social animal to be rational.
Be warned: these two books (both published by Cambridge University Press) are hard work for first year students and you are unlikely to plough through their entirely. Nevertheless even reading bits of them, and making a point of returning to them in the years to come, will fill you with joy and pride.

Words

I do understand that it is a bit perverse of me to try to communicate the essence of effective writing when the majority of my readers have English as their second language - particularly when I return fairly often to the subject. It was, for example, just 3 years ago when I commended almost 60 writers for the quality of their writing – although at least a dozen of them were bilingual (eg Svetlana Alexievich, Oriana Fallacia, Masha Gessen, Sebastian Haffner, Arthur Koestler and Joseph Roth)

But these efforts simply flagged up my preferences – they didn’t try to identify the features that gave the writing its impact. And that’s what I now want to attempt – building on the comment in the last post that “impact” has something to do with not only the style but also the character of the writer. Generally, of course, we are told to separate the two when we are considering creativity - but I think this is impossible 

Let’s start with character – as I survey the various lists I’ve made, what comes through is the breadth of their curiousity and the independence of their thought – indeed their downright obstinacy. They read voraciously across intellectual (and often national) boundaries – and don’t suffer fools gladly.

On style, they generally use short sentences and are constantly on their guard against the clichés and metaphors which so easily take over our minds. We should be in charge of language – not the other way around. George Orwell is the master of this – as his widow put it in her preface to the 2^nd volume of “Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters”, he was – 

one of the most honest and individual writers of this century -- a man who forged a unique literary manner from the process of thinking aloud, who possessed an unerring gift for going straight to the point, and who elevated political writing to an art. 

The very first essay in that second volume is on “New words” which anticipates the Newspeak his 1984 made famous 

When you are asked "Why do you do, or not do, so and so?" you are invariably aware that your real reason will not go into words, even when you have no wish to conceal it; consequently you rationalize your conduct, more or less dishonestly. I don't know whether everyone would admit this, and it is a fact that some people seem unaware of being influenced by their inner life, or even of having any inner life. 

For anyone who is not a considerable artist (possibly for them too) the lumpishness of words results in constant falsification…. A writer falsifies himself both intentionally and unintentionally. Intentionally, because the accidental qualities of words constantly tempt and frighten him away from his true meaning. He gets an idea, begins trying to express it, and then, in the frightful mess of words that generally results, a pattern begins to form itself more or less accidentally. It is not by any means the pattern he wants, but it is at any rate not vulgar or disagreeable; it is "good art". He takes it, because "good art" is a more or less mysterious gift from heaven, and it seems a pity to waste it when it presents itself. Is not anyone with any degree of mental honesty conscious of telling lies all day long, both in talking and writing, simply because lies will fall into artistic shape when truth will not?

In practice everyone recognizes the inadequacy of language -- consider such expressions as "Words fail", "It wasn't what he said, it was the way he said it", etc.) 

No wonder TS Eliot (who didn’t like Orwell!) wrote (in “Burnt Norton”) – 

Words strain,

Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,

Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,

decay with imprecision, will not stay in place

You can read the entire poem here and later (in East Coker) a section I use a lot – 

So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years

Trying to learn to use words, and every attempt

Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure

Because one has only learnt to get the better of words

Yanis Varoufakis has clearly read his “Politics and the English language” essay from 1946 and I tried recently to understand why Varoufakis writes so well – 

What makes Varoufakis' various books such excellent reading is the sheer originality of his prose –showing a mind at work which is constantly active…...rejecting dead phrases, clichés and jargon… helping us see thlngs in a different light..... using narrative and stories to keep the readers’ interest alive…He's in total command of the english language - rather than, as so usual, it in control of him.....

You don’t expect to find good prose in the “Further Reading” section of a book, but just see what Varoufakis does with the task…

 Inconclusion

As usual, words (and thoughts) have distracted me from the intention behind this post – namely to try to identify the characteristics of “writing which makes an impact”. To demonstrate the difficulty of such an endeavour, let me share with you 60 Words to describe Writing or Speaking Styles ….. 

articulate – able to express your thoughts, arguments, and ideas clearly and effectively; writing or speech is clear and easy to understand

chatty – a chatty writing style is friendly and informal

circuitous – taking a long time to say what you really mean when you are talking or writing about something

clean – clean language or humour does not offend people, especially because it does not involve sex

conversational – a conversational style of writing or speaking is informal, like a private conversation

crisp – crisp speech or writing is clear and effective

declamatory – expressing feelings or opinions with great force

diffuse – using too many words and not easy to understand

discursive – including information that is not relevant to the main subject

disputatious - an inclination to argue

economical – an economical way of speaking or writing does not use more words than are necessary

elliptical – suggesting what you mean rather than saying or writing it clearly

eloquent – expressing what you mean using clear and effective language

emphatic – making your meaning very clear because you have very strong feelings about a situation or subject

epigrammatic – expressing something such as a feeling or idea in a short and clever or funny way

epistolary – relating to the writing of letters

euphemistic – euphemistic expressions are used for talking about unpleasant or embarrassing subjects without mentioning the things themselves

flowery – flowery language or writing uses many complicated words that are intended to make it more attractive

fluent – expressing yourself in a clear and confident way, without seeming to make an effort

formal – correct or conservative in style, and suitable for official or serious situations or occasions

gossipy – a gossipy letter is lively and full of news about the writer of the letter and about other people

grandiloquent – expressed in extremely formal language in order to impress people, and often sounding silly because of this

idiomatic – expressing things in a way that sounds natural

inarticulate – not able to express clearly what you want to say; not spoken or pronounced clearly

incoherent – unable to express yourself clearly

informal – used about language or behaviour that is suitable for using with friends but not in formal situations

journalistic – similar in style to journalism

learned – a learned piece of writing shows great knowledge about a subject, especially an academic subject

literary – involving books or the activity of writing, reading, or studying books; relating to the kind of words that are used only in stories or poems, and not in normal writing or speech

lyric – using words to express feelings in the way that a song would

lyrical – having the qualities of music

ornate – using unusual words and complicated sentences

orotund – containing extremely formal and complicated language intended to impress people

parenthetical – not directly connected with what you are saying or writing

pejorative – a pejorative word, phrase etc expresses criticism or a bad opinion of someone or something

picturesque – picturesque language is unusual and interesting

pithy – a pithy statement or piece of writing is short and very effective

poetic – expressing ideas in a very sensitive way and with great beauty or imagination

polemical – using or supported by strong arguments

ponderous – ponderous writing or speech is serious and boring

portentous – trying to seem very serious and important, in order to impress people

prolix – using too many words and therefore boring

punchy – a punchy piece of writing such as a speech, report, or slogan is one that has a strong effect because it uses clear simple language and not many words

rambling – a rambling speech or piece of writing is long and confusing

readable – writing that is readable is clear and able to be read

rhetorical – relating to a style of speaking or writing that is effective or intended to influence people; written or spoken in a way that is impressive but is not honest

rhetorically – in a way that expects or wants no answer; using or relating to rhetoric

rough – a rough drawing or piece of writing is not completely finished

roundly– in a strong and clear way

sententious – expressing opinions about right and wrong behaviour in a way that is intended to impress people

sesquipedalian – using a lot of long words that most people do not understand

Shakespearean – using words in the way that is typical of Shakespeare’s writing

stylistic – relating to ways of creating effects, especially in language and literature

succinct – expressed in a very short but clear way

turgid – using language in a way that is complicated and difficult to understand

unprintable – used for describing writing or words that you think are offensive

vague – someone who is vague does not clearly or fully explain something

verbose – using more words than necessary, and therefore long and boring

well-turned – a well-turned phrase is one that is expressed well

wordy – using more words than are necessary, especially long or formal words