Dr Butler speaking at the launch of his latest book, The Best Book on the Market.

The emperor Diocletian decreed maximum prices for bread. Bakers couldn’t make a fair return, and stopped baking. The American colonies tried to keep down the price of wheat, which nearly caused George Washington’s army to starve because nobody produced wheat any more.

That’s not ‘market failure’. That’s political failure. Mrs Thatcher was right that “you can’t buck the market”. Markets don’t do what politicians want because markets are human. They are just how human beings rub along together. And humans tend to do what they want, not what their political masters want. Let’s have more markets and fewer politicians, I say.

I know James from his time in Cambridge, when he became an active member of the Adam Smith Institute’s Next Generation Group. So I know too that he loves reading, and is always surrounded by books, magazines and newspapers. Which makes it a thrill that he’s chosen to mention my book in his blog.

He’s showcased me alongside two books by my ASI colleague Dr Madsen Pirie, who is a rising author of Children’s science fiction. That guy knows quality sources when he sees them!

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So when I studied economics at St Andrews University in Scotland, I knew something wasn’t right. The textbook writers were trying to make their subject a science, like mechanics. They treated people like robots, not human beings. By stripping out every trace of human psychology – irrationality, generosity, habit, ignorance – they stripped out everything that makes markets actually work.

Now I’m Director of one of the world’s leading free-market policy think-tanks, and at last I can explain why college economics is just wrong. And more importantly, how most of what politicians build on this crumbling foundation is wrong too.

I wanted something that everyone – even politicians – could understand, so I’ve cut out the jargon and show how markets really work through my own story, and the stories of countless others of people in real-world markets. Because markets are only human.