Paul Ormerod's "Butterfly Economics"

I read this book because it was referenced in some material I was reading as an example of the new economics that reaches beyond the classical equilibrium economics, i.e. analysis of ceteris paribus and looking at marginal effects at equilibrium. The book does claim to do that, but not convincingly for me. I'm convinced that traditional economics needs to be overhauled and I'm willing to countenance Ormerod's agent-based analysis as a possibility to introduce dynamism into economics. But I didn't find Ormerod's book all that convincing. It was too superficial and at the same time it did too much hand waving about the complexities. My preference would have been something that tried to present a coherent framework of some depth. I recognize the need to do this without mathematics to maintain the general reader as an audience (as did Ormerod). But Ormerod interprets this as a need to remain airily vague in his analysis.

The ant example that he starts the book with is good. It is attention grabbing and motivates the reader to accept the unpredictable complexity of a dynamic situation. But he doesn't then develop any theory of economics that makes use of this insight. At least nothing that is conveyed to the reader.

So this book is more of an announcement of a research program than it is a presentation of a new theory. There is no substance. No foundational insights and no elaboration of a theory. I was greatly disappointed.

On top of that, the writing style was fairly opaque. It was not absolutely obtuse academicese, but it was turgid prose. There was nothing to lift the reader. At least in textbooks they highlight the key points and motivate a section with an introduction and provide some kind of summary to make sure the student doesn't miss the important points. Ormerod didn't deign to provide any of this to assistance to his readers. As a result, the reader would wade through pages wondering "why is this important?" and "what is this leading to?" and "how does this connect to the previous material?".

I wouldn't recommend this book to others. This is a shame because I believe that the research program of Ormerod is important. Unfortunately this is not the book to introduce the general reader to it.