Book Review: Zombie Economics

By John Quiggin

DEREK PARKER By DEREK PARKER

Black Inc, A$19.95

Not zombies so much as straw men, in this case. Quiggin, a professor of economics at the University of Queensland and a media talking head, says this book is meant to lay bare the assumptions of pro-market neo-liberalism that caused the global financial crisis. The trouble is, it’s hard to find persuasive examples to fit the argument. There is a persistent sense that Quiggin selects his evidence, taking extreme views and passing them off as mainstream thinking. There is a big gap between the view that markets are a good way of allocating resources – at least, better than pervasive government decree – and saying they are always right all the time, which Quiggin seems to believe is the norm and especially in the finance sector.

Copyright 1997-2011 CPA Australia