Second, to give a handle on the complexity, Chang gives us a satisfying number – nine: “ there are at least nine different schools of economics, each with its strengths and weaknesses.” (In her review of the book, Zoe Williams identifies and summarizes them.) “ There isn’t just one right way of ‘doing’ economics, despite what most economists tell you.” At another point, he writes, “The focus on the market has made most economists neglect vast areas of our economic life.” Straw men? Alas, it seems not. Chang’s ideas are easily accessible in many different interviews and reviews, but perhaps most neatly and efficiently laid out, first, in an article written by the author himself and, second, in an extensive review and summary of the book.įirst, to point to the crucial need to meet majority assumptions, Chang challenges the status quo. In this regard, a useful further resource for our TOK treatment of the human sciences is a new book by Ha-Joon Chang, Economics: The User’s Guide. Economics, as we recognize in TOK, is very much a human science – inescapably human in its study and interpretation of aspects of human behaviour. (by Theo Dombrowski, from OSC TOK blog August 13, 2014) Interviewed in the TOK Course Companion, economist Susan McDade (working with the United Nations) comments that “most economic theories” used in the West are based on “assumptions can be pointed out to be weak or not always true” and argues for a complex series of values that are typically ignored by economists.

Chang economics the user's guide