Best of 2024: Books on business and economy

Growth: A history and a reckoning (Allen Lane, Rs 720), by Daniel Susskind (Source: Amazon)

Growth: A history and a reckoning (Allen Lane, Rs 720), by Daniel Susskind

Susskind, who has in the past looked at how technological advancement will impact what humans do and how — A World Without Work (2020) and The Future of the Professions (2015) — takes a step back and looks at the economic growth in a historical context. The first half of the book tells the story of why there was no economic growth for the longest time in human history, why it suddenly began just about 200 years ago and how it is being sustained. The second half is the reckoning bit. Fast economic growth has come at a huge cost such as the destruction of the natural environment, the desolation of local cultures and communities, the emergence of vast inequalities, and the creation of technologies that are set to disrupt how humans work. The second half of the book deals with the dilemma: That our biggest problems are being caused by our growth.

How Economics Explains the World (Mariner Books, Rs 2270), by Andrew Leigh (Source: Amazon)

How Economics Explains the World (Mariner Books, Rs 2270), by Andrew Leigh

Why didn’t Africa colonise Europe instead of the other way around? What happened when countries erected trade and immigration barriers in the 1930s? Why did the Allies win World War II? Why did inequality in many advanced countries fall during the 1950s and 1960s? How did property rights drive China’s growth surge in the 1980s? How does climate change threaten our future prosperity? If you often find yourself asking such questions, then this is the book for you. It tells the story of how economic forces have shaped world history.

Slow Productivity (Penguin Business, Rs 899), by Cal Newport
(Source: Amazon)

Slow Productivity (Penguin Business, Rs 899), by Cal Newport

The sub-title — “The lost art of accomplishment without burnout” — must ring a bell for many in today’s anxiety-driven world. Newport first talked about the concept of “slow productivity” (as a way to avoid burnouts) a couple of years ago. He referenced it to Jenny Odell’s 2019 book “How to do nothing” and the growing trend where people are pushing back against the conventional demand of productivity or to get more and more things done — think of 70 or 80 hour weeks. The Covid pandemic only advanced that rethink. So what is slow productivity? Three main principles: “1. Do fewer things. 2. Work at a natural pace. 3. Obsess over quality.” Read the book if you are exhausted by everyday notions of being productive.

The Unaccountability Machine (Profile Books, Rs 2,050), by Dan Davies (Source: Amazon)

The Unaccountability Machine (Profile Books, Rs 2,050), by Dan Davies

President Truman had a sign on his desk that read: “The Buck Stops Here”. That was the 1950s. Just a few decades later, when he was asked about government shutdowns in the US, President Trump said: “the buck stops with everybody”. Davies’ book is essentially about how accountability has atrophied in our society. He calls it “the industrialisation of decision-making” – the methods by which, over the last century, the developed world has arranged its society and economy so that important institutions are run by processes and systems, operating on standardised sets of information, rather than by individual human beings reacting to individual circumstances.