The book is a compendium of Munger's talks. The final talk summarises it all. The remaining talks are incomplete drafts thereof. The omissions do not constitute a bug. When addressing a restive audience, it is wise to say less. As Munger observes in a Q&A session after one of the talks, he criticises psychology without saying how exactly psychology should be done because any such revelation would do little for the listener. The lesson will stick only if the listener stumbles upon it himself. Munger's only job is to make the audience curious and sceptical.
These are generalists who succeed in business. Extrapolating from this, Munger finds it hard to understand specialisation in academic departments. Specialisation is liable to generate economies of scale from working on the same topic and favours a status hierarchy that persuades academics that they are better off being paid with status rather than cash. This is a great deal for society. Munger is right, however, in that most students are not going to become academics and, therefore, would benefit from a more generalist perspective than that which universities nudge them into.
Munger is also right about the diminished role that social status plays in social science: economics, politics, and psychology. The final talk in the volume summarises what else is missing from academic psychology. The greatest omission, though, is the lack of a unifying, general-equilibrium theory.
