Andrew A. Smith
Scripps Howard News Service
Sept. 4, 2012 -- Michael Goodwin hasn’t just written a great graphic novel – he’s written one that should be required for every school, newsroom and library in America.
Economix: How Our Economy Works (and Doesn’t Work) in Words and Pictures (Abrams ComicArts, $19.95) condenses and explains how modern economies work, from roughly the beginning of capitalism to the present. In the process Goodwin explores the great works, models and philosophies of a lot of economists we’ve all heard of, but never understood, including Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations, 1776), Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels (The Communist Manifesto, 1848), John Kenneth Galbraith (The Affluent Society, 1958), Milton Friedman (Wealth and Freedom, 1962), and Joseph Stiglitz (Globalization and Its Discontents, 2002).
If that sounds like an unlikely topic for a graphic novel, consider Larry Gonick’s The Cartoon History of the Universe (which, Goodwin told me in a phone interview, was an inspiration). Goodwin was ably abetted by the award-winning artist Dan E. Burr (Kings in Disguise), whose loose, cartoony style complements and brightens up material that usually puts most of us to sleep.
Goodwin covers a lot of ground, and it took him more than a decade of writing to boil it down to its essentials. “Often what happened is, I would look at a book on my shelves,” he said with a laugh, “and remember ‘I read that book,’ [so I’d write] like, 20 pages on it, cut that down to two, cut that down to one, cut that down to a panel, [then take] the panel out.”
That was one reason he wrote Economix in comics form, he said; the enforced discipline of the medium kept him “from writing a 20-volume work.” But it’s also a natural way for Goodwin to express himself, having grown up with his stepfather, cartoonist Rick Meyerowitz of National Lampoon. Also, he said, “I knew from Larry Gonick that you just remember things better when they’re in comics form.”
Which is only important if Goodwin succeeded – and, boy, did he. Not only did he condense hundreds of years and dozens of economic models into an engaging narrative, but he took time out to explode a few modern myths as well. For example, he says, today’s free-market advocates completely misrepresent Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, as do many economists, who fall back on ideal models that don’t take into account the real world.
“Basically they took one part of his idea, which is the invisible hand [of the marketplace], and it’s very important, [but] sorta plucked it out of the book and forgot everything else in there,” Goodwin said. “Smith’s approach was to look at everything in the real world and draw conclusions from that. … People who came after him … didn’t even look at how the free market worked any more. They took Smith’s free market, assumed that it had already done its work, and looked at what the economy would look like if that had happened. That’s often still the case today.”
Another problem with those ideal models is that they exclude the exercise of power to influence the free market, so that it’s no longer really free. “Trying to explain the economy without mentioning power is like trying to explain politics without mentioning money,” he said. “Economic power and political power always go hand in hand. If you have money you have power, and if you have power one of the things you use it for is to get money.”
But for all the problems and myths surrounding the “dismal science,” and despite today’s political and economic logjam, Goodwin – and by extension Economix – remains fundamentally optimistic. This is due to the experience America had in 1920s and ‘30s.
“If you look at the 1920s, the Great Depression, the way it ground on, the paralysis, the fact that these business leaders clearly had no clue and nobody was doing anything and politics was just paralyzed,” he said. “And the only solution to many people seemed to be a revolution from the left or the right. When Roosevelt was elected – people forget this – a lot of lefties just rolled their eyes. ‘Oh great, a rich kid, like he’s gonna help us.’
“And then the ice cracked. And then you got a massive amount of reform very quickly which set the stage for what was, for all its problems, a good 30-40 years of real prosperity. What’s forgotten now is how unthinkable all these advances seemed in even in 1932. Social Security? But there was a whole generation there when people actually remembered the Depression and the New Deal and the war, which were a great economic lesson. So for a whole generation nobody listened to the conservatives.”
Which raises one problem for Economix – it skewers a lot of sacred cows on the right of American politics, like free-market fundamentalism and trickle-down economics. Is Goodwin worried about a conservative backlash?
“I should be so lucky to become big enough that they have to respond to it,” he laughed.
Contact Andrew A. Smith of the Memphis Commercial Appeal at capncomics@aol.com.
Comments
Cap, I'd like to see that. I'd love a read of this book sometime. Colleen Doran's book about the Irish in the US is probably my next Indie purchase. I'll keep an eye on the library for now.
Cap, have you read a book called Logicomix (similar title to this one)? It's about Bertrand Russell's life and struggles as a heavyweight philosopher. Just like this book it uses the graphic form to get across very complex ideas in a way that perhaps prose couldn't. It's a very enjoyable book.
I have a feeling I'd disagree with some of his views on economics, but I'm intrigued by the format he uses. I may pick this up.
He used an analogy I didn't have room for about how in a free market consolidation of banks should result in lower fees, but in our market it results in bigger fees, because the new behemoth can chase out competition and charge what it wants. I think I'll put the whole interview up when I get a chance.
I see they cut the last 5 paragraphs though! Interesting. Mustn't have been space for them on the internet that day :-)
At least they left this in, which is like a breath of fresh air to read, as it is left unsaid all too often:
Great article about what sounds like a great book, Cap.
Every little bit helps!
This review got a nice mention on The Beat today. Just mentions the StarTribune as a source, though.