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Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life |
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List Price: $15.95
Our Price: $10.85
Your Save: $ 5.10 ( 32% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Collins Business
Average Customer Rating:  
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PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 330
EAN: 9780887308857
ISBN: 0887308856
Label: Collins Business
Manufacturer: Collins Business
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 352
Publication Date: 1997-08-27
Publisher: Collins Business
Release Date: 1997-07-18
Studio: Collins Business
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Editorial Reviews:
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David Friedman has never taken an economics class in his life. Sure, he's taught economics at UCLA. Chicago, Tulane, Cornell, and Santa Clara, but don't hold that against him. After all, everyone's an economist. We all make daily decisions that rely, consciously or not, on an acute understanding of economic theory--from picking the fastest checkout tine at the supermarket to voting or not voting, from negotiating the best job offer to finding the right person to marry. Hidden Order is an essential guide to rational living, revealing all you need to know to get through each day without being eaten alive. Friedman's wise and immensely accessible book is perfect for amateur economists, struggling economics students, young parents and professionals--just about anyone who wants a clear-cut approach to why we make the choices we do and a sensible strategy for how to make the right ones.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Deeply Flawed Analysis
Comment: I have to say I didn't read too much of this book before being turned off by it. I will give you a few examples of what immediately caught my eye in the beginning of the book. He claimed that getting rid of the practice of buying used textbooks would not increase sales and then basically said that if you disagree it is because you are stupid. His argument was that the price of selling the book after being used factored in to the cost the consumer would pay. As anyone who has ever attended college knows, you don't get to choose whether or not you will a text book. You have to buy it for the course and the people dictating what book you must buy do not feel the costs themselves and often do not even have much interaction with those that do. This is why my statistics textbook cost over a hundred dollars despite being of far lessing quality than Statistics for Dummies.
In another one of poorly hatched ideas, he claims that poor people do not want universal health care because they are choosing not to buy it; better to have food than antibiotics. And being that government health care would be paid with taxes, we would be forcing those people to forgo basic shelter for medicine. He would have us believe that a person could somehow afford something that costs more money than that person has in the bank or that insurance companies would even insure the dirt poor (and therefor prone to illness) with unreliable, low income workers. And in the whole analysis he seems to forget that virtually every modern country in the world has a progressive tax system.
That's enough of that I suppose. I just wanted you to get an idea of what kinds of things you will be coming across in this book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not What It Seems
Comment: This book attempts to explain the dry, boring field of economics in an engaging and painless manner. It fails at doing that. The text itself is often times confusing and dry, coupled with graphs that are basically incomprehensible to anyone without an economics degree. I was more confused after reading than the book than before it. To anyone interested in reading about economics actually displayed in an interesting, fun way, I would highly recommend Naked Economics by Charles Wheelan. It is a tremendously informative and funny book, and actually fun to read.
Customer Rating:
Summary: It's an excellent book!
Comment: It's an excellent book. Although I enjoyed reading Freakonomics, "Hidden Order" is a much deeper and broader book in terms of issues discussed.
What I really like about it that in additional of covering existing issues, it helps to learn how to approach new problems.
The sad thing is although the book was written in 1996, we(and politicians, and TV/Radio talk heads) are still using the same uninformed reasoning during the discussions.
It would be great if the book became a required reading in the high schools and colleges.
After getting it from a library, I bought it for my friends.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good micro-economics primer, but not of the "popular" genre as it claims...
Comment: What David Friedman has written here is a good, but very serious, micro-economics book in a relatively conversational tone. In a number of places on the back cover and in the early text, the book makes the claim that it is a "popular" economics book along the lines of Freakonomics; it isn't. It is a far deeper dive into the nuts and bolts of the tools of micro-economics rather than a light read about fascinating applications of those tools.
That doesn't preclude this from being a good book; for the most part it is, but a lot of people are likely to feel like a victim of a bait-and-switch if they read this book expecting another Freakonomics.
Hidden Order lays out the micro-economic theories of the Chicago School, a n approach to economics originated largely by David Friedman's legendary father Milton Friedman. The economics of the Chicago School are proving to have far more validity over time than the main rival, Keynesian economics which makes reading a book like this very worthwhile for someone willing to invest the time to understand economics better.
This book can make you a better thinker, voter and judge of information from the media. Recommended for anyone who values such things.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not Recommended
Comment: Having read (and thoroughly enjoyed) Levitt's Freakonomics, I picked up "Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life" looking for more of the same. Unfortunately, I was sadly disappointed.
I get the impression the author intended to write a Freakonomics-type book, but was only able to come up with 40 pages of material (located at the end of the book). Facing an irate publisher, he then filled in the initial 290 pages with his old Economics lecture notes. As a result, readers who have taken an elementary economics course will find much of the material repetitive, while those who have not will most likely find the material too confusing to be of any real use. (Despite the glowing accolades on the cover, the author's explanations are no better than those available in a standard textbook.)
The author also posits end-of-chapter questions for the reader to ruminate upon, but does not provide any answers. Aside from formal textbooks where such questions are intended to be assigned to students, such tactics are unconscionable. Of course, the author may be priming the pump for sales of a "Hidden Order Supplement".
A final negative point is the author's tone, which is frequently condescending towards the reader (e.g. telling the reader they would not understand the math behind a given theory, so it will not even be presented). While this may be true for a layperson reading the book, being talked down to certainly does nothing to build their confidence or cultivate their interest in the subject matter.
Overall, if you can borrow a copy from a friend or a library, the last 40 pages are worth reading. Otherwise, save your time and money.
Reviewer's background:
B.Sc. (Computing Science & Mathematics)
M.B.A. (Finance & Marketing)
Ph.D. (Finance)
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