Stephen Marglin is a very brave man. For years he led glassy-eyed Harvard doctoral students in their only compulsory seminar, encouraging them to question economics’ basic assumptions. A tough market. Part of why his new book is so good: only the most illustrative stories survived.

Stephen Marglin is also a very worried man. Unlike some colleagues, he’s noticed that few other humans “think like economists”. He realised this when teaching at Delhi’s Indian Statistical Institute in the ’60s; students managed advanced math, but couldn’t explain it in real terms. Actually thinking like economists appeared pointless to them but necessary; else you “might have to settle for driving a cab”. (The penalty for failure has certainly changed, but the educational system that produced such beliefs has not.) Economics, he decided that Delhi afternoon, was “culturally specific”. And not just Indians, but most westerners, weren’t part of the culture that got it.

Stephen Marglin is also a very gloomy man. Market-led growth has, he fears, destroyed something vital: a sense of community. How does he know community is vital? Like a good economist, because people value it. The Amish, a favourite example, are farmers living a 17th century life in 21st century Pennsylvania; he tells the story of how they reject state care for a child with immune-system problems; accepting the help wouldn’t “be Amish”. The child died; that’s how much community matters to people, Marglin says. Thinking like an economist traps you into thinking that this was a retrogressive, oppressive social system that needed to be dragged into modernity for the sake of the children, if nothing else. That would apparently be a mistake.

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