Harry Truman famously remarked that he wished he could find a one-armed economist since all the ones he had to deal with were constantly weasel-wording their advice with “on the one hand” and “on the other hand.” As one who routinely had to read and try to squeeze meaning out of the verbiage of White House economic advisors as a speechwriter for presidents Nixon, Fordand Reagan, I know exactly how Truman felt.
But if a one-armed economist might come in handy (pun intended), the same cannot be said for one-eyed economists. By one-eyed, I mean economists so immersed in the jargon and theory of their pseudo-science that — like a one-eyed man — they can only view economic policy one-dimensionally. They seem incapable of integrating their economic theory into an over-all, three-dimensional concept of the society they are trying to apply it in.
It gives me great pleasure to state that the author of “The Third Pillar” is, without a doubt, a two-eyed economist. Raghuram Rajan, currently a professor of Finance at the University of Chicago School of Business, is more than a scholar of note; he has also served as governor of the Reserve Bank of India and chief economist for the International Monetary Fund.
Just as importantly, he is a fluent, accessible writer on matters economic who tackles his subject in depth and in three dimensions. In the case of Mr. Rajan, the three dimensions, as his book's subtitle indicates, are the market, the state and the community. And, as he sees it, for too long now the market and the state have been fattening at the expense of the community.
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