So
You Want
to Know About
Economics
Roopa Pai has written over twenty books for children, covering the gamut from fantasy to popular science to philosophy. She combines three other loveshistory, young people, and her hometown Bangalorein her job as a tour guide with heritage walks and tours company, BangaloreWalks. Her bestselling The Gita For Children won the Crossword Popular Award for Childrens Writing in 2016.
Mohit Suneja started his life as an artist from a young age when he drew portraits and copied action figures from comic books. He followed his passion and trained at the College of Art, New Delhi where he later went on to teach as a professor of Visual Communication. He has since worked in many roles in many industries and created everything from book covers to wall paintings. Today, Mohit is set to travel at the speed of his imagination trying to create a better world through his art.
Published in Red Turtle by
Rupa Publications India Pvt. Ltd 2017
7/16, Ansari Road, Daryaganj
New Delhi 110002
Copyright Roopa Pai 2017
Illustrations copyright Rupa Publications India Pvt. Ltd 2017
The views and opinions expressed in this book are the authors own and the facts are as reported by him/her which have been verified to the extent possible, and the publishers are not in any way liable for the same.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN: 978-81-291-XXX-X
First impression 2017
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated, without the publishers prior consent, in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.
For Dhwani Yagnaraman and Inika Prasad, future economists and overall rockstars, with many thanks for test-driving this book.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
WHY SHOULD WE TALK ABOUT ECONOMICS?
Heres an idea. Pick up a notebook and pen, walk to the nearest adult, and with your most earnest face (practice in front of the mirror first), tell them you are conducting a Very Important survey for a school project. There are only two questions, so would they please give you five minutes of their time? If you live with more or less reasonable people, they will most likely agree.
When your unsuspecting victim has settled down, ask her your first question:
What is your opinion of Economics as a subject?
The person you are interviewing will most likely look distinctly traumatised by the question. Then she will perhaps respond in one of the following ways.
Absolutely. The. Most. Mind-numbingly. Boring. Subject. On. Earth!
Youd have to be a math genius to even begin to understand what the subject is about. Im not.
I passed with decent marks, but if you asked me what Economics taught me, I dont quite, erm, know.
No opinion at all. Ive never studied it, and never been tempted to. Can I go now? I have to pee.
Pushing on ruthlessly, ask the second question:
What do you think about when you think about Economics?
People who have never studied the subject will be wonderfully vague. Its about money, right? About budgetshow a country divides the money it has? About GDP and stocks and shares and uh, stuff to do with the Reserve Bank and the Finance Minister and taxes and oh all right, all right , I admit it, I dont think about Economics at all . Please dont judge me.
People who have studied the subject, on the other hand, will clear their throats, sit up straighter, and proceed to throw random words and phrases at you. Its about, you know, markets and things. Supply, demand, price elasticity, externalities, cost-benefit, scarcity, resources, exchange rates, maximising utility, protectionism, globalisation, and all of them, of course, ceteris paribus When they finally catch your glassy-eyed expression, they will turn up their noses and say, See, its Very Complicated. Difficult to explain. You wouldnt understand it.
Only a few peoplea rare species but they do existwill smile beatifically when you ask them these questions. They will lean forward in their seats, faces animated, eyes sparkling, and tell you that Economics is the most exciting subject in the world. Over the next half hour, pinning you to your seat with their fire-and-brimstone eyes, they will tell you why they think so. This is what they might say:
Economics is important because it is really the study of how the world thinks and works! See, economists are really psychologists in disguisethey have looked into the deepest, darkest recesses of the human heart and discovered that all of us are essentially selfish beings at the core. But if every person is doing selfish things that only benefit him or her, how come society is doing more or less okay? Economists believe they have the answer to that Big Question, and they spend their lives figuring out how to arrange things in the world so that society benefits while people go on doing their selfish things.
Economists are really superheroes fighting for a fairer world! One of their lives Big Challenges is to figure out the best ways to share the worlds limited resources (like minerals, metals, oil, human labour, time, energy or money) amongst people who have unlimited needs, in ways that are as moral and ethical as possible. They constantly obsess over how to make things somewhat equitable for everyonethe rich and the poor, developed countries and developing countries, the healthy and the sick, and the old and the young, so that both sides benefit. They look at every problem from more than one point of view, and then they present all the different views, so that people can make the right choice for themselves.
Economists are closet environmentalists. Just like environmentalists, they are constantly trying to understand how we, the 7 billion people that inhabit this planet, can get the most out of what the universe gives us for freesunlit skies, clean air, flowing rivers, lush forestswithout mindlessly destroying it and ruining things for ourselves. The two groups have very different ideas on how to make this happen, though.
Economists are wizards who make magical things happen with numbers. They have shown, time and again, that when, say, a billion people work together, the sum of their individual efforts is far greater than what it is supposed to be.
And by the way, if someone told you they didnt think about Economics at all, they dont know what theyre talking about, because everyone is thinking Economics all the time, even if they dont realize it. Every time you go into a supermarket and find your favourite breakfast cereal, you are benefiting from the Economics of a free market, which makes sure that everything the consumer wants (and some stuff that she doesnt even know she wants!) is available easily to her. Every time you scarf down a dosa at your local South Indian caf, you are helping the economy of your neighbourhood grow. Every time you pay for a plastic bag in a store because you neglected to bring your own from home, you are participating in the fight for a cleaner, less toxic world (who do you think came up with the idea to have people pay for plastic bags so that they eventually use less of them? An economist!). So there!