Dead economists cast long shadows, argues Todd Buchholz. To quote one of the greats of the 20th century, John Maynard Keynes: "Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences are usually the slaves of some defunct economist."

All the usual suspects are here - Smith, Malthus, Mill, Marshall and Marx and the great minds of this century. Buchholz rises above the ordinary by putting flesh on the bones. For example Adam Smith, regarded as a founding father of the discipline, reputedly once walked 15 miles in his sleep.

Marx may have been a champion of the proletariat but on a personal level knew how to have a good time, spending much of his father's money on drink and the high life as a student. While younger he had some curious habits, forcing his sisters into cake eating competitions where he made the cakes with dirty dough and unwashed hands.

Thorsten Veblen was a particular favourite of mine. His classic work was The Theory of The Lei- sure Class where he derided conspicuous consumption, showing how people were prepared to pay a higher price for a good because the good in question had a high price. Today's craze for designer labels proves the point.

One of the few things that Smith, Marx and Veblen agreed on was that business people love to use politics for their own ends. Smith's invisible hand of the market, as we are beginning to see, was on the take in the Ireland of the 1980s as business found some leading politicians and bureaucrats in its pocket.

Our modern day politicians could learn from John Stuart Mill who refused to spend anything on his election campaign, never canvassed, wrote unpopular words about the masses and still got elected. Mercifully free of equations, diagrams and tables Buchholz manages to dispel the dismal from economics and passes the classic test by explaining some difficult concepts in simple terms.