Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events

Honestly, I didn’t totally get this book.

The basic premise is that there are “narratives” that drive economics. There are stories or explanations of things that we believe, and that cause economic things to happen.

Some examples, from the book:

• Sellers can go into panic mode
• The Gold Standard is better than bimetallism
• Machines will replace jobs
• AI will replace jobs

If that sounds vague…well, yeah. I didn’t understand the point the book was trying to make – that these narratives exist, or that they’re wrong, or…what.

It reads well. The later chapters are about the histories of the different narratives, but I was still waiting at the end for some explanation of why I should care?

Again, I just didn’t really get it. At the end, I was thinking, what was the point of all that?