|
|
|
Detail Center Header Text Above Items |
(Larger Image)
|
Myths of the Free Market
by Kenneth S. Friedman
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Algora Publishing (2003-05)
ISBN: 0875862233
EAN: 9780875862231
Dewy Decimal #: 330.122
Paperback: 276 pages
SKU: BM617-13.20
Condition: Collectable Like New
Comments: Signed by author to Barbara Ehrenreich. New book. New condition. 5 star service. Ships same day or next in a bubble mailer. Enjoy.
|
Editorial Reviews
|
Product Description
Myths of the Free Market is arguably the most significant book in economics and politics since John Maynard Keynes. It systematically presents a broad range of telling criticisms of free market economics, criticisms that have not been presented elsewhere. Despite our genuine faith in the free market, laissez faire has not maximized wealth. When we moved from the purer free market policies of the 1920s and early 1930s to the proto-socialism of Roosevelt, our economic growth increased. As we have moved back to a purer free market, growth has slowed. We have lagged our trading partners who have mixed economies. Nor is this new. In the late 1800s the mixed economies of Bismarck's Germany and Meiji Japan outperformed the relatively free market economies of Great Britain and France. It is worse. Even in principle, laissez faire cannot work - it is incompatible with institutions that increase wealth. Patent protection is one example, easily generalized. It is worse yet. Laissez faire promotes the excessive concentration of wealth and exposes us all to avoidable danger. Over the last millennium there has been a 200-300 year cycle of wealth dispersion. Each time wealth disparity grew beyond a critical point it presaged decline and disaster for all of society. We now have the greatest disparity of wealth in our history. Kenneth Friedman holds an MS in Physics and PhD in Philosophy of Science from MIT. He has been interviewed in Barron's and on CNBC and quoted in The Wall Street Journal.
|
Customer Reviews
|
Some excellent points, if a bit disjointed
Rating  (4)
Date: 2008-01-08
Kenneth Friedman's book on the problems of the free market has many things in its sights: laissez faire, libertarianism, education, even the U.S. Supreme Court. The book has some great quotes; a sampling follows:
"Laissez-faire has not maximized wealth. It is worse: Even in principle laissez faire cannot maximize wealth."
"Globalization favors the rich, as it always has."
"Without intervention to protect the middle and lower classes, a free market economy can drain money from those classes to create an extreme concentration of wealth. Historically, such a concentration of wealth has destabilized societies and adversely impacted the security and standard of living of even the wealthy."
The book does miss some things. Friedman puts far too much emphasis on economic growth. GNP growth as a measure of well-being is so inaccurate as to be almost laughable. GNP is measured by counting up what is spent on various items. This works more or less OK if you're counting food bought by hungry people, but very poorly indeed if you're counting money spent on bombs or automatic rifles, or on parking garages for rich people's cars. GNP is not corrected for increasing population, pollution, drawdown of natural resources, or declining quality of life. More accurate measures of economic growth, such as the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare or Genuine Progress Indicator, tend to show that there has been far less genuine economic growth than the official statistics suggest. For more on this, see McKibben's book Deep Economy, Daly's Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development, or Brian Czech's Shoveling Fuel for a Runaway Train: Errant Economists, Shameful Spenders, and a Plan to Stop them All.
Friedman includes an excellent discussion on the problems of a free trade policy. One thing he misses here, though, is that the traditional comparative advantage analysis never mentions transport costs. In today's world transport is heavily subsidized. Under such conditions free trade is a fast route to impoverishment for all the countries involved in it. Globalization is essentially a fantasy created by cheap oil.
Friedman mentions that democracies generally work best in small homogeneous communities. He goes from there to proposals for improving community spirit. That's fine. He misses the obvious conclusion, though, that policies which simultaneously increase the size of a community and make the community more heterogeneous, are virtually guaranteed to decrease community spirit. Large-scale immigration does both. In my opinion, limiting such immigration is an essential step toward stronger communities.
Friedman includes an essay on improving education. I agree that education is critical, but I'm a bit skeptical of his proposals to improve it. Friedman wants to focus education less on "stuffing information into the crevices of a mind" and more on creativity. The problem here is that creativity is essentially about facts bumping into one another inside a single mind. Without a certain level of factual knowledge, creativity is unlikely. I presently have a son in the 5th grade in the local public elementary school. I don't see an overemphasis on factual knowledge there. What I do see is an endless stream of educational "reforms" that have been implemented with little or no research to show that they work with real kids in real classrooms. (The use of computer games for learning is an example.) The idea of teaching creativity instead of rote facts has been around for centuries. Rousseau was a big advocate. Unfortunately, "creative" teaching methods have serious problems. They're hard on teachers even under the best conditions, since they require a lot of preparation time. "Creative" teaching methods work especially poorly with unmotivated, lazy kids, who are always in the majority in most schools. Keep in mind that some of the most creative geniuses in history were educated using rote learning. Rote learning can simultaneously provide a foundation for later learning and give a bright child something to rebel against. Don't be too quick to throw it out.
Overall, "Myths of the Free Market" is a bit disjointed. It sometimes jumps wildly from topic to topic. However, it is too good to let that stop you from reading it.
|
|
Sorry Ken, too much ADD
Rating (4)
Date: 2007-08-30
Read this book if you have any doubts about current economic theory, be it in fiscal or monetary policy, or if you are an investor and don't want to follow the old small investor habit of buying high (after the max growth has passed) and selling low (to avoid further loss of capital). Mr. Friedman makes excellent points about the inability of classical economics to accurately predict or even explain economic ebb and flow. While he does an exemplary job proposing an alternative for linear supply-demand curve math in the form of differential equations mathematical modeling (first order differential equations modeled after non-linear thermodynamics), he fails to mention that caveat used as a crutch by traditional economists still clinging to Adam Smith's outdated concept: "Ceterus Paribus" (lit: "All else being equal"). This is the explanation used by economists to avoid properly addressing criticism of classical supply/demand theory. Any attempt to address status quo theories must also address those theories' attempt at hand-waving away any counter arguments. In addition, the use of GNP instead of GDP in demonstrable citation is curious. Nevertheless, the loss of a star is due primarily to what I can only call "Mission Creep" in Mr. Friedman's overall point. While appeal to logic is certainly commendable and preferable to appeal to tradition, Mr. Friedman's examples of current hot-button issues (e.g. abortion, religious elitism, etc...) are unnecessarily impassioned and separate from the point of the failings of the free market system. These separate criticisms of current social topics and judicial interpretations should be put in a separate book to appeal to a different target market: not the economist, or economy student. Such social commentary should be targeted towards the social scientists and politically oriented policy-makers. This is why I give the book four out of five stars.
-jpl
|
|
No market is FREE
Rating  (5)
Date: 2006-03-01
0 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
Are you prepared? Do you have doubt?
If you want to know the truth about markets, read this book! If not, keep watching the talking heads on CNBC!
|
|
|
|
Detail Center Footer Text Below Items |
|
|