The Concise Guide to Economics

Preface / Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. -- Introduction -- Basics and applications -- 1. Overview of the schools of economic thought -- 2. Entrepreneurship -- 3. Profit/loss system -- 4. The capitalist function -- 5. The Minimum Wage Law -- 6. Price gouging -- 7. Price controls -- 8. Regulation -- 9. Licensing -- 10. Monopoly -- 11. Antitrust -- 12. Unions -- 13. Advertising -- 14. Speculators -- 15. Heroic insider trading -- 16. Owners vs. managers -- 17. Market vs. government provision of goods -- 18. Market vs. command economy -- 19. Free trade vs. protectionism -- Money and baning -- 20. Money -- 21. Inflation -- 22. The Gold Standard -- 23. The Federal Reserve System -- 24. The business cycle -- 25. Black Tuesday -- 26. The Great Depression -- Technicals -- 27. Methodology -- 28. Labor theory of value -- 29. The trade deficit -- 30. Economic class analysis -- 31. Justice, property rights, and inheritance -- 32. Cost push -- 33. The Phillips Curve -- 34. Perfect competition -- 35. The multiplier -- 36. The calculation debate -- 37. The history of economic thought. To understand economics is to understand the practical case for freedom. The great merit of this book is to bring out the connection in the clearest and shortest possible way.The Concise Guide To Economics is a handy, quick reference guide for those already familiar with basic economics, and a brief, compelling primer for everyone else. Professor Jim Cox introduces topics ranging from entrepreneurship, wages, money, trade, and inflation to the consequences of price controls and anti-price gouging laws.If it were read alongside the daily newspaper, it would undermine most all the fallacies that appear nearly every day. Along the way, he defends the crucial role of advertising, speculators, and heroic insider traders.Thus does the book combines straightforward, common sense analysis with hard-core dedication to principle, using the fewest words possible to explain the topic clearly. And each brief chapter includes references to further reading so those who are curious to dig deeper will know where to look next.The popularity of this book has been growing for several years. A website dedicated to it is already very popular. One organization dedicated to public activism buys it by the hundreds, viewing it as the shortest and best way to counter economic fallacy.The Concise Guide makes a great gift to those who have never thought about the workings of economic logic, and thereby misunderstand the case for free-market capitalism.From the Introduction by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, "The beauty of Cox's book comes from both its clear exposition and its brevity. He offers only a few paragraphs on each topic but that is enough for people see both error and truth. Sometimes just mapping out the logic beyond the gut reaction is enough to highlight an economic truth. He does this for nearly all the topics that confront us daily."Many people only have a moment. That's why the guide is essential. It is probably the shortest and soundest guide to economic logic in print. May it be burned into the consciousness of every citizen now and in the future." To understand economics is to understand the practical case for freedom. The Concise Guide To Economics is a handy, quick reference guide for those already familiar with basic economics, and a brief, compelling primer for everyone else. Jim Cox introduces topics ranging from entrepreneurship, money, and inflation to the consequences of price controls (which are bad) to price gouging (which is good). Along the way, he defends the crucial role of advertising, speculators, and heroic insider traders. The book combines straightforward, common sense analysis with hard-core dedication to principle, using the fewest words possible to explain the topic clearly. And each brief chapter includes references to further reading so those who are curious to dig deeper will know where to look next. The Concise Guide makes a great gift to those who misunderstand the case for free-market capitalism. There are four major schools of economic thought today.