The economy is something that can be a very tricky topic, and is something that a lot of people struggle with. Personally I have always struggled with truly understanding it myself, and this made me view the economy from a few different angles, and educating me a different ways. Bylund explores the cascading impacts of reforms to shed light on how rules affect people's daily lives. Bylund is able to enlighten the reader by presenting a model for comprehending the economy and market and so offers a fundamental knowledge of the economy as a creature instead of a machine. Regulations are limitations imposed on how the economy operates, and they have both intentional and unexpected, direct and indirect effects. Although the indirect effects are also widely understood, they are frequently disregarded since they don't fit with the way an economy is viewed by machines. More importantly, Bylund is able to highlight the actual impacts of regulation and market reform on individual players, highlighting how the economy functions to give a person the options they have in decision-making scenarios. We develop a new definition of prosperity and well-being that emphasizes a person's access to worthwhile options. From this vantage point, rather than looking at the consequences on the economy as a whole, the real implications of regulation are tracked step by step, following the logic of exchange.
Does it work? Well, it depends on what we mean by "work". If by "work" we mean that the outcome is of a structure that dovetails with what we would personally prefer, then the answer is probably no. (Bylund pp.3)
Bylund does a very good job with this by first engaging with the reader by asking a question making us really think if it works or not. He then goes to explain why we should continue to learn about the tricky topic of the economy as it is important for us as a society to learn about it before we use it. The economy is a very tricky thing to master, Bylund states "...the market works in one way or another-regardless of our personal preferences..."(Bylund pp.4) and it can often work in ways that we may not be expecting. It may work in a way that we do not want at all and there is nothing that we can do about it sometimes.
The market economy is simply made up of exchanges between people, and it survives off of that in order to continue moving. The more and more people continue to exchange goods for the better of themselves, the better and healthier the market will be. The way people value certain things plays a major factor in the role of the market and it's goods. One person may value a certain good much more than another person, and it is all a huge factor in the market.
There is a a lot to unwrap with economics and how it relates to the economy, and how we live our everyday lives.
The economy is all of us economizing. (Bylund pp. 16)
I really like what Bylund is saying here, because in our everyday lives we use economics all the time without even thinking about it. If we are saving up for a certain item and then something else comes up, we must prioritize what we need and make decisions based on what we feel is best for us. For us in society, we must make sacrifices all the time, to give up one thing in order to purchase another, and we use economics without even knowing it. One of the major problems in economics is often the lack of resources. When demand is higher or faster than a factory can produce, it can propose a huge problem for economics. Resources can be limited, which is why being extremely efficient is the goal of every successful venture. Understanding the value of economics and the way to look at it is the most important thing to understand when becoming an economist.
Economics is based in the concept of human action
as purposeful behavior.(Bylund pp.22)
I really like what Bylund is saying here, I think he is really trying to point out how important it is for us as a society to be active in the economy, and to learn the mains aspects of it inside and out. Humans are the biggest factors in the change of the economy, the more active we are as a society, the more that the economy will produce.
There is more to the economy than the production of a good that we see sitting on a store shelf. (Bylund pp.42)
There is so much about the economy that we may never see about the production from resources, to producing the item, transferring it, and then finally hitting the shelve on the store. It is a very extreme process that takes many people and lots of precise time to produce the right way. Innovation is key in the economy, without innovation the economy would not grow and be healthy, which is very important for a society.
