Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

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Participants •Citizens •Context •How We Got Here •Theory •Human Nature •
Charles MacKay • Apr 25, 2009 • (0) Comments •
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From Wikipedia

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds is a history of popular folly by Charles Mackay. The book chronicles its targets in three parts: "National Delusions," "Peculiar Follies," and "Philosophical Delusions." Learn why intelligent people do amazingly stupid things when caught up in speculative edevorse. The subjects of Mackay's debunking include alchemy, beards (influence of politics and religion on), witch-hunts, crusades and duels. Present day writers on economics, such as Andrew Tobias, laud the three chapters on economic bubbles.

From the Amazon review:

Why do otherwise intelligent individuals form seething masses of idiocy when they engage in collective action? Why do financially sensible people jump lemming-like into hare-brained speculative frenzies--only to jump broker-like out of windows when their fantasies dissolve? We may think that the Great Crash of 1929, junk bonds of the '80s, and over-valued high-tech stocks of the '90s are peculiarly 20th century aberrations, but Mackay's classic--first published in 1841--shows that the madness and confusion of crowds knows no limits, and has no temporal bounds. These are extraordinarily illuminating,and, unfortunately, entertaining tales of chicanery, greed and naivete. Essential reading for any student of human nature or the transmission of ideas.

In fact, cases such as Tulipomania in 1624--when Tulip bulbs traded at a higher price than gold--suggest the existence of what I would dub "Mackay's Law of Mass Action:" when it comes to the effect of social behavior on the intelligence of individuals, 1+1 is often less than 2, and sometimes considerably less than 0. -

The book is in the public domain and is available online from a number of sources:

• Works by Charles Mackay at Project Gutenberg
• Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds @ archive.org
• Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

Of course, you can also purchase it at Amazon.com, if you'd rather.

For an opposing viewpoint, see James Surowiecki's The Wisdom of Crowds. Jim says that crowds or groups may have better information and make better decisions than even the best informed individual.

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