DAVID ORRELL
“The Price of Revolution,” with Simon Winchester and Chris Shulgan. Enterprise Square. Sat, Oct 18 (1pm)

“It’s ironic that economics is presented in this boring fashion,” says David Orrell over the phone from his current home base in Oxford, England, “because in the end it’s about money, it’s about power, which is really exciting, right?” Considering the state of the world’s stock markets, the Edmonton-born author is putting it mildly. Right now, economics isn’t boring, nor is it exciting; it’s a panic-inducing fear-coaster.

Understatement or not, Orrell’s point remains valid — whether it’s a pocketful of change or a worthless stock portfolio, we care about our cash. While citizens worry about the health of the economy in a general sense (it was a major concern as we headed to the polls last Tuesday), we shy away from economics in a technical sense. That would normally make Orrell’s latest book, The Other Side of the Coin, a tough sell; luckily for him, his creative explanations of money matters and what exactly is wrong with the way we run our market systems is particularly au courant. The problem, Orrell explains, is that we consider economics a science and it’s not; it’s more of a world view.

“Economics is very important culturally for us, if you think of it as kind of a cultural phenomenon,” explains Orrell. “You can think of it as kind of a story about what we as people are. So the traditional economic view says that we’re all rational, independent investors who are making all of these rational decisions to optimize our own utility. And it gives this impression of the economy as this ultra-efficient machine, guiding us to some perfect state. But I think this story is really wrong.”

It seems like “reasonable and rational” would leave out a lot of people, including me. My five-dollar macchiatos don’t make a lot of sense when I have coffee sitting at home. I mean, the heroin addict or the Warcraft drone or the post-Thanksgiving turkey-coma victim aren’t exactly “optimizing their utility.”

“All this emphasis on rationality is strange because we know that decisions are based more on emotion,” Orrell says. “For example, if you want to buy a particular car, it often comes down to how you feel about it.”

Orrell argues that our economy has three main problems: it’s unfair, it’s unstable, and it’s unsustainable. “It’s unfair,” he begins, “because the levels of inequality have increased steadily in recent decades, so you get the rich getting richer and everyone else staying behind. You have to have two people working just in order to afford a mortgage now, whereas before it just used to be one person. The economy is unstable, as we’ve seen with this credit crunch, and it’s also unsustainable in the sense that we’re bumping up against the limits of the planet, basically. The economy has grown to a state where it is comparable to other forces that determine the earth’s climate.”

If you’re intrigued but easily befuddled by the likes of Adam Smith or even the market commentators on TV, don’t shy away from The Other Side of the Coin. Orrell’s writing is clear, patient and fun — Jimi Hendrix even makes an appearance (dead rock stars are so much more entertaining than dead philosophers). Still, after reading his book you may have a few questions, and so does he. That’s why we have LitFest. Get your answers when Orrell speaks in a session called “The Price of Revolution,” along with authors Chris Shulgan and Simon Winchester.

“I think it’s going to be really interesting to kind of bat ideas around and see what commonalities there are in these [revolutions],” says Orrell. “What is it in people that makes them suddenly want to overthrow their system and make drastic changes?”

Maybe a $700-billion bailout? Personally, I’m wondering what to do with my cash right now. Buy? Sell? Burn it for fuel?

“The thing about keeping money under the mattress,” Orrell says, “is that what we need to do is protect ourselves the same way we would protect ourselves against an earthquake. We have to acknowledge the fact that these kinds of crashes are a fundamental part of market systems and so you want to keep, sort of, a portion of cash under the mattress.”