Howdy.

This is what I intend to be the start of a sequence on economics. Almost two years ago while reading through Greg Mankiw’s macroeconomics textbook, I noticed the bizarre manner in which Mankiw’s analysis of banking simply presumed central banking, with free market banking entirely ignored. I looked around for an explanation of why the economics is done that way, and after realizing that there isn’t one, I decided to write a book about why economists support central banking and what banking regime the evidence actually supports.

Writing a book is slow and difficult, and I finally realized recently, even though my dad told me this from the beginning, that it would be much smarter to write out my thoughts in shorter articles and get immediate feedback on them, which is what I intend to do here.

I decided to try this on LessWrong because I really liked reading the sequences here and think there should be one on economics, and because the feedback I’ll get here is probably the best I could hope to get on the Internet anywhere.

I know there’s a community norm against discussing politics here, but this sequence is really supposed to be about the economics, not politics, although it is the curse of economics that it’s really hard to talk about what economics does and doesn’t say without inadvertently refuting half a dozen political ideologies in the process. For me my opinions about the desirability of central banking simply fell out of doing the economics, in much the same way that atheism ought to be a natural consequence of reaching a certain level of rationality. In any case, the sequence will mostly be about history, economics, and economists. Most of the articles individually won’t have anything to do with politics. And if my sequence is ignored because of its political connotations, or if the introduction of a bit of political discussion into LessWrong starts destroying the community here, I’ll go elsewhere.

My name is Benjamin Lyons. I’m a self-taught 20 year-old American currently serving as a volunteer soldier in the Israeli Defense Force, where I am a proud senior vice supply closet manager at an army-themed summer camp for the worst teenagers in the Middle East. Yes, I’m entirely self-taught in economics, so you’re free to be entirely skeptical of anything I have to say and you probably should be. However, the economics and history I’ll present in this sequence will be entirely orthodox mainstream stuff. I’ll differ from the mainstream in the conclusions I draw and don’t draw from the economics, not the economics itself. If there’s any exceptions I’ll highlight them.

Well, this might turn out to be a disaster but the whole point of doing this for me is to get a lot better at writing and to turn my thoughts and arguments into something that can become a book in a manner much faster than just trying to write a book.

I don’t know what kind of posting schedule I’ll be able to maintain. I’d like to do one per day but that may be impossible, especially in the army. Nevertheless that’s what I’ll shoot for.

I’m trying to become stronger quickly, so I definitely am looking for fierce criticism here. That sort of thing has never bothered me on a personal level, and I know I can count on the people at LessWrong to criticize what needs criticizing and to complement and encourage what deserves complements and encouragement.