Why Everyone Needs to Learn (Some) Economics
Why Read This
What Makes This Article Worth Your Time
Summary
What This Article Is About
Ha-Joon Chang uses an extended metaphor comparing Britain’s culinary transformation to the state of modern economics. Just as 1980s Britain suffered from culinary conservatism until embracing diverse cuisines in the 1990s, the economics profession has undergone the opposite trajectory—from intellectual diversity before the 1970s to near-total dominance by neoclassical economics since the 1980s. Until the 1970s, multiple schools of economics—classical, Marxist, Keynesian, Austrian, Schumpeterian, institutionalist, and behaviouralist—coexisted, competed, and cross-pollinated through debates and policy experiments. This intellectual ecosystem resembled today’s diverse British food scene, where competing traditions learn from each other and create innovative fusions.
However, through a combination of academic factors, professional power politics (including the so-called Nobel Prize’s promotion of neoclassical approaches), and the theory’s palatability to ruling elites, neoclassical economics achieved hegemonic status. Chang argues this intellectual monocropping has created dangerous consequences: it narrows economics’ scope, creates theoretical blindspots, and—most critically—threatens democratic functioning. Because economics has become “the language of power,” shaping policies on taxes, welfare, labor markets, and even justifications for non-economic institutions, citizens without economic literacy cannot effectively participate in democracy. Moreover, economic theories shape human nature itself by defining what behavior society considers normal and by influencing industrial development that molds individuals’ characteristics. Chang concludes by asserting that economic literacy is not elitist knowledge but accessible common sense, and that active economic citizenship requires overcoming initial learning barriers to participate meaningfully in collective decision-making.
Key Points
Main Takeaways
From Diversity to Monoculture
Economics transformed from multiple competing schools before the 1970s to near-complete neoclassical dominance since the 1980s through academic and political forces.
Economics as Power Language
Economic theories don’t just describe reality—they constitute the language through which power operates, making economic literacy essential for democratic participation.
Theory Shapes Human Nature
Dominant economic theories create self-fulfilling prophecies by establishing cultural norms that define what behaviors society considers natural and human.
Neoclassical Assumptions Normalize Selfishness
The dominant school’s assumption that humans are exclusively self-interested has normalized self-seeking behavior and stigmatized altruism as irrational or suspicious.
Market Logic Colonizes Democracy
When economic reasoning privatizes essential services, it expands market logic’s “one-dollar-one-vote” principle at the expense of democratic “one-person-one-vote” equality.
Economic Literacy as Common Sense
Chang argues 95 percent of economics is accessible common sense obscured by jargon, making active economic citizenship achievable for ordinary people.
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Article Analysis
Breaking Down the Elements
Main Idea
Cruel Optimism Keeps Precariat Attached to Harmful Fantasies
O’Dwyer deploys Berlant’s “cruel optimism” framework demonstrating how cryptocurrency marketing exploited post-2008 precarity by selling American dream fantasies that exposed vulnerable populations to fraud while serving capital’s interests. Crypto emerged from libertarian Californian ideology, got marketed to Black Americans and young people facing structural wealth barriers, then offloaded risk onto peak buyers left “holding the bag.” This exemplifies cruel optimism—desires keeping subjects attached to harmful fantasies. Contemporary YOLO philosophy keeps precarious Millennials/Gen Z attached to markets through desperate gambles, transforming finance into survival lotteries.
Purpose
Critical Exposure of Financial Predation Through Cultural Analysis
O’Dwyer exposes how crypto’s American dream rhetoric masked systematic exploitation of structurally excluded populations, using cultural artifacts—Super Bowl ads, Beef, WallStreetBets forums—revealing affective dimensions of contemporary precarity. Her purpose is simultaneously diagnostic and political: explaining why vulnerable people embrace risky investments while indicting profiting systems. Functions as ideological critique showing libertarian Californian ideology perpetuates rather than solves inequality, validating precarious subjects’ experiences through affect theory rather than dismissing them as irrational, ultimately positioning current speculation as logical neoliberalism endpoint.
Structure
Marketing → Origins → Framework → Culture → Systemic Diagnosis
Opens with Super Bowl ads establishing crypto’s American dream marketing before revealing failure. Excavates bitcoin’s Cypherpunk/Extropian origins contextualizing libertarian market-worship. Introduces Berlant’s cruel optimism while demonstrating application through demographic shifts and cultural artifacts—Beef’s Paul, WallStreetBets loss porn. Zooms to systemic diagnosis: retail trading as pandemic phenomenon, YOLO philosophy replacing security, markets as survival lotteries. Progression moves from seductive marketing through ideological origins and theoretical framework toward lived experience documentation, culminating in political-economic analysis positioning crypto speculation as neoliberal precarity symptom rather than isolated phenomenon.
Tone
Empathetic Critique Balancing Anger and Understanding
Maintains critical analytical tone—calling Californian ideology “toxic,” noting crypto “did not level the playing field”—while avoiding moral condemnation of desperate investors, channeling anger toward exploitative systems. Demonstrates empathy through detailed attention to WallStreetBets posters’ situations, explaining money as “crystallized version of thousands of hours.” Increasingly dark and nihilistic toward conclusion, mirroring diagnosed affective atmosphere. Balancing act refuses both libertarian individualism (blaming victims) AND paternalistic dismissal (treating speculation as mere irrationality), recognizing desperation as reasonable response to impossible conditions.
Key Terms
Vocabulary from the Article
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Tough Words
Challenging Vocabulary
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The practice of cultivating a single crop over a large area, or metaphorically, the dominance of a single idea or approach excluding diversity.
“This intellectual ‘monocropping’ has narrowed the intellectual gene pool of the subject.”
The quality of being reserved, restrained, or unwilling to speak or act; reluctance to draw attention to something or challenge it.
“The neoclassical school’s inherent reticence to question the distribution of income, wealth and power underlying any existing socioeconomic order has made it more palatable to the ruling elite.”
Too large or too small in comparison with something else; lacking proper balance or proportion relative to another element.
“The globalisation of education during the post-Second World War era, in which the disproportionate ‘soft’ cultural power of the United States has been the biggest influence.”
Expressed contempt for or ridiculed something; mocked or treated with scorn and disrespectful dismissal.
“People who act in an altruistic way are derided as ‘suckers’ or are suspected of having some (selfish) ulterior motives.”
Gradually decreasing in size, amount, or strength; diminishing or shrinking over time until becoming very small.
“Greater income inequality or fewer labour rights generate not just more clashes between the powerful and those under them but also more conflicts among the less privileged, as they fight over the dwindling piece of pie available to them.”
Seeming difficult to deal with in anticipation; intimidating or discouraging through apparent complexity or magnitude.
“The prospect of making the investments necessary to become an active economic citizen – learning economics and paying attention to what is going on in the economy – may seem daunting.”
Reading Comprehension
Test Your Understanding
5 questions covering different RC question types
1According to Chang, Britain’s food culture became more diverse before its economy experienced the dominance of neoclassical economics.
2Which factor does Chang identify as contributing to neoclassical economics’ dominance?
3Select the sentence that best illustrates how economic theories actively shape human behavior rather than merely describing it.
4Evaluate these statements about the historical diversity of economic schools:
Before the 1970s, different schools of economics sometimes borrowed ideas from each other, occasionally without proper acknowledgment.
Some economists attempted fusion of different theories, creating hybrid schools like post-Keynesian economics.
Japan and Brazil are identified as countries where neoclassical economics achieved dominance earlier than in the United States.
Select True or False for all three statements, then click “Check Answers”
5Based on Chang’s discussion of how economic theories influence society, what can be inferred about his view of the relationship between privatization and democracy?
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Chang critiques how neoclassical economists claim to have incorporated insights from other schools—like Schumpeterian innovation or behaviouralist limited rationality—while maintaining these concepts remain superficial add-ons rather than fundamental integrations that transform the host theory. Just as Pizzaland added baked potatoes beside pizza to comfort customers frightened by foreign food without actually embracing Italian cuisine, neoclassical economics bolts on concepts from other schools without allowing those concepts to challenge its core assumptions about human nature, market mechanisms, or wealth distribution. Genuine fusion—like Peruvian cuisine blending Inca, Spanish, Chinese, and Japanese influences into something new, or David Chang’s cooking integrating multiple traditions—requires letting different approaches fundamentally reshape each other. Chang argues neoclassical economics resists such transformation, preferring superficial borrowing that preserves its essential character.
Chang provides specific examples of how industrial versus agrarian economic structures produce different types of people with different behavioral traits and political orientations. People in industrialized countries develop better time-keeping abilities because factory work organizes life according to clocks, unlike agricultural rhythms tied to seasons and daylight. Industrialization also promotes trade union movements by concentrating large numbers of workers in factories where close cooperation is necessary, contrasting with dispersed farm labor. These union movements then create centre-Left political parties advocating egalitarian policies that persist even after deindustrialization. The argument demonstrates that economic theories don’t just affect material outcomes like income or employment—they shape fundamental human characteristics, social relationships, and political structures by determining what kinds of economic activities societies pursue and how those activities are organized, which in turn molds the individuals participating in them.
Chang argues that in capitalist systems, economic reasoning has become the dominant language for justifying collective decisions across all spheres, not just conventionally economic ones. He notes that even non-economic institutions like Britain’s monarchy get defended in terms of tourist revenue rather than tradition, principle, or symbolic value. When policies regarding taxes, welfare, labor markets, healthcare, education, and infrastructure are all formulated and justified using economic logic derived from the dominant neoclassical school, citizens who lack economic literacy cannot meaningfully evaluate what they’re voting for or against. They cannot distinguish between genuine necessity and ideological preference dressed as technical inevitability. Democracy requires informed consent, but if the language of policy debate is economic and most citizens don’t speak that language, democratic participation becomes hollow—people pull levers without understanding the mechanisms they’re engaging, effectively ceding governance to technocratic experts whose theories serve particular interests.
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This article is rated Advanced level, reflecting its sophisticated argumentation about intellectual history, economics methodology, and the philosophy of social science. While Chang deliberately adopts an accessible voice and uses the extended food metaphor to make abstract concepts concrete, the text requires readers to follow complex analogical reasoning, understand the distinction between descriptive and constitutive theories, and grasp how meta-level arguments about disciplinary diversity relate to practical concerns about democratic functioning. Advanced-level texts demand ability to evaluate multi-layered arguments where surface accessibility masks conceptual sophistication—Chang’s claim that economics is “95 per cent common sense” is itself a strategic rhetorical move that requires critical assessment. Readers must track parallel narratives about British food culture and economic schools, recognize the ironic temporal inversion between them, and understand how this structural device supports his broader epistemological and political claims.
Chang parenthetically notes that the Nobel Prize in economic sciences ‘is not a real Nobel prize but only a prize “in memory of Alfred Nobel”, given by Sveriges Riksbank, the Swedish central bank,’ immediately establishing its institutional character before arguing it has played ‘a big role’ in professional power politics favoring neoclassical economics. This observation suggests the prize functions as a legitimation mechanism—by conferring Nobel prestige on particular approaches and economists, it creates hierarchies within the profession that favor neoclassical work. The prize’s institutional origin in a central bank (representing established financial interests) rather than Alfred Nobel’s original bequest hints at how economic power shapes academic recognition. The cumulative effect of repeatedly honoring neoclassical economists creates network effects: their students get better academic positions, their methodologies appear more rigorous, their assumptions seem more scientifically validated, making competing schools appear marginal or unserious regardless of their intellectual merits.
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