Eat The Rich: Can Economics Be This Funny?

P.J. O'Rourke is back with his latest wry insights. His previous works have attacked foreign countries (Holidays In Hell) and politics (Parliament of Whores, Republican Party Reptile), among others, and have been notable in their hysterical, canny examinations. Eat The Rich is not O'Rourke's best, but it's an incredibly enjoyable read nonetheless.

O'Rourke's main premise for the book was the search for the answer to the following question: Why do some places prosper and thrive, while others just suck?" In his quest, O'Rourke examines different economic models such as: Good Capitalism (Wall Street); Bad Capitalism (Albania); How To Have The Worst of Both Worlds (Shanghai). Additionally, he examines basic Economics in the chapter From Beatnik to Business Major: Taking Econ 101 for Kicks.

No reader of this book should aim to actually learn anything about economics here -- that which does get passed along should do so via osmosis; this is not text to be pored over and studied. It's a quote from the back of the book, but it so perfectly sums up the style and level of academia in this text:

The example of efficiency that economists usually give is guns and butter. A society can produce both guns and butter, they say, but if the society wants to produce more guns it will have to -- because of allocation of resources, capital and labor -- produce less butter. Using this example you'll notice that, at the far reaches of gun-producing efficiency, howitzers are being manufactured by cows. And this is just one of the reasons we can't take economists too seriously.

O'Rourke, a liberal reporter for Rolling Stone in the sixties gone conservative, has been funnier in his previous works. Parliament of Whores literally had me laughing out loud, as did Holidays In Hell. Still, he succeeds here because of his talent, as well as the fact that this is relatively unchartered territory for humor writers.

I saw O'Rourke speak during this book tour, and what amused and horrified me was that many of the questions he received were actual questions about economics. O'Rourke handled it deftly, answering most of the questions with humorous quips, but it was still a bit odd. This, of course, has zero bearing on your experience with the novel, but since this is sharing time, I wanted to let you know.

Eat The Rich is enjoyable, but if you are new to O'Rourke's writing, I would suggest his previous works first. If you are a longtime reader of his works, this won't disappoint, but it won't have the same classic status of those prior publications.