Talking To My Daughter

A Brief History of Capitalism

 

Have you ever been in a situation where everyone around you is talking about the latest economic policy of the government and you are not able to understand even the tiniest bit of it? You can’t grasp a thing about the jargon like ‘inflation’, ‘money supply’, and ‘base rate’. Or the concepts like how banks create credit out of thin air and why the government simply prints more money and makes everyone rich. All these things baffle you and you feel zoned out.


Well, worry no more. The famous economist Yanis Varoufakis has written a straightforward yet insightful book titled ‘Talking to My Daughter: A Brief History of Capitalism’ for a common man like you and me. Yanis has served as the former finance minister of Greece too.

Even more interesting is the story behind writing this book. Yanis has a daughter who lives in Australia. She doesn't know a thing about the economy. So, Yanis sets on a journey to teach his daughter economics. He retreats to his holiday home by the side of a beach and starts writing.

Yanis Varoufakis 

He has written this book in a father-daughter conversation style. The tone he uses is very passionate. He even draws examples from movies and fictional characters to make readers understand the complex topics of economics.

The questions he addresses are simple yet significant like how the concept of money and business started in the world, how it got structured in the way it’s today, and why the rich are rich and the poor are the poor. He also tries to address complex problems like why Europeans colonized Africans and the rest of the world, and why not the other way round?

He also points out the errors in the existing economic system. He goes into length to explain the future of the economy and hot issues like cryptocurrency. It's very interesting to know how the cryptos can’t exactly work as the existing money.

The book is too easy to talk about serious issues like the recession and boom of the economy and how the government influences it. It makes the user understand the role of the central bank and other government bodies in keeping the economy alive. His experience as a finance minister of Greece during its tough economic downturn has come in very handy in explaining the topics.  

The funniest part of the book is, it points out why economist is not as good at predicting the economy as any layman. It talks in detail about the limitation of the experts in influencing the economy. And this is sure to increase your analytical power while going through the economy section of the newspaper from onwards.  

It has become very urgent to understand the rough concept of economics, especially when a full fledge recession is expected around the corner. Yanis and his book have been phenomenal in explaining the ins and outs of the economic system. Even going through, the back story of everyday things like how do banks make money, why government bails out the banks first during the depression, and how the concept of loans started is mind-boggling.

Moreover, this book is best at grabbing the attention of the reader from the beginning right through the end of it. The most beautiful part of this book is, as he has written it for his daughter, he has used more feminine terms whereas usually, the books are written in a masculine tone. Addressing the reader by saying ‘heroine’ makes you pause for a while, and realize how gender stereotyping we had been all the time even in the most subtle acts. This obviously makes you smile seeing how beautifully the world is moving towards gender equality one step at a time.

In conclusion, this is a beautifully written book for a common reader. It has no footnotes and references as it has no difficult jargon that would need further explanations. However, it gives you a strong foundation to further your quest for economics. He even recommends different great books to look for to know about specific aspects throughout the book. In the end, you will have ample knowledge about the basics of knowledge along with amazing guidance for further advancement. This book would be a great read for yourself or even your kid whom you want to teach about the economy.

Talking to My Daughter: A Brief History of Capitalism

Writer: Yanis Varoufakis 

Language: English

Genre: Business & Economics

Publisher: Farrar, Straux and Giroux, 2018