Regardless of your politics or level of understanding, this book will leave you knowing more about economics. Goodwin’s history is complete and in depth while Barr’s artwork presents a blend of historical personae and visual metaphor (corporations are presented throughout as giant anthropomorphic factories). It’s a clear, factually accurate critique of how the development of economics as a science has left the real world out of its equations and how that lack of depth has brought us to a critically unstable tipping point (enter perennial economic depressions, repressions, slow-downs, melt-downs… and whatever else they’re going to call it next year). He then proceeds to dissect, in detail, the revolt of the rich and powerful and the means by which they have solidified their hold on our economy and by extension, the future.Įconomix was the first book I stumbled across when I delved into this topic, and it’s great. Goodwin is totally unafraid of the controversy he might stir up, and backs that confidence with historical insight. It is this author’s assumption that “…today’s justifications for extreme inequalities of wealth and power are horse-pucky, just like yesterday’s, and will completely fade away.” In other words, there’s absolutely no need for a 1% to make the system work for the other 99%.

As the comic starts to venture into the present day, Goodwin admits his own political ideas and history. Goodwin tells the story of the development of economics theory from its pre-Enlightenment nascent state, to the convoluted mess that we are left with today. If you came to me asking for a starting point in this arena, my surefire response would be to go out and get a copy of Economix: How Our Economy Works and Doesn’t Work In Words and Pictures.Īuthors: Michael Goodwin, David Bach, Joel Bakan There are a variety of “economic comics” to chose from out there and each one has a different approach to the field. And so daunting and courageous it is to see artists and writers undertake the so-called “dismal science” to the pages of the graphic medium. By Zachary Johnson-Dunlop | Economics is seen by most of us as one of the most boring academic disciplines: it’s all the computation of a Math degree, with the fevered opinion of a Poli-Sci degree, and most of the public understands it about half as well as they understand either of those.

Burr dan economix