The cover of the book calls this "The explosive follow-up to Freakanomics," but I think I definitely liked the first book better. That's not to say that this book isn't good... it is, but personally I liked the first book better.
In case you haven't read either book, in which case I suggest you get your name on the waiting list at your local library, these books are not about economics in the typical sense of the word. There's no discussion of "the economy" or how our spending/lending practices will cause trouble. Instead, these books take a few basic economic principles such as supply and demand and the trickle down effect and take a look at how they operate in our society. In some ways it feels like a sociology book more than an economics book... but it definitely doesn't feel like a textbook any way you look at it.
I don't really know how to talk about this book without having to get into a whole bunch of details, but one of the things I thought was the most interesting was the discussion on altruism and the environment. For a long time, sociologists/economists were doing experiments that proved people were basically altruistic, but they had one big design flaw in the experiments... the people knew they were being watched. When people didn't know they were being watched, they were decidedly less altruistic and behaved much more like what we would expect people to behave like. What does this have to do with the environment you may ask? Well, what doesn't it have to do with the environment? Basically what it comes down to is the fact that people won't change something that doesn't have a negative consequence for them (and even then people won't necessarily change). Which means (in my own opinion, not that of the book) that for individuals in a society to become more eco-friendly they need to either A) see the negative impact of humanities actions on the environment, take it to heart, and change their ways; B)have negative consequences set in place (either through laws with penalties being enacted or through a social ridicule program--such as that against smoking); or C)make the eco-friendly options cheaper.
Personally, I think that option A is the most effective because you're getting people to actually care about the cause which means they'll care more about being eco-friendly in all aspects of their lives, but it's a slow, winding road and you'll never get everyone to see your point of view (especially since the majority of people don't have the luxury of time or money to care about how their decisions impact the environment or themselves). Option B just leads to a lot of laws, which I'm against because I don't think that making laws is that effective. Which leaves Option C... making it economically advantageous to be eco-friendly. As someone at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder right now, I think this is the best way to enact massive change.
Think about it this way. You're the owner of a chain of grocery stores and you've just been convinced that the number of plastic bags used by customers in your store is solely responsible for global warming, so you'd like to encourage people to quit using so many disposable plastic bags for their produce and to carry all their purchases to their car. The most effective way to get people to re-use their bags or to use sturdier cloth bags is to start charging them for each new disposable bag they use. If you were going to be charged $.10 for every bag you used, you'd be a lot more likely to spend $1.00 to buy a cloth bag to carry your things in because you would see a return on your investment relatively quickly. And this isn't just a hypothetical situation... in the Midwest there's a grocery store chain called Aldi who charges for every bag used, and you know what? People will do anything they can most of the time to not have to buy one of their bags. They either bring they're own bags or they'll use the boxes that the cans and other packages come in so that they can save that $.30 or $.40 per trip. I doubt that every customer in the store cares about being eco-friendly, yet most of them are participating in an act that is eco-friendly. What if more businesses worked like this?
So, back to the book. Freakanomics and Superfreakanomics are great books to get you thinking about things. Some of their statistics and arguments are a little out there, but the authors' intent was to get you thinking about the world around you in a different way. I think they definitely achieve this in a way that is accessible to the masses. At least I find these books to be entertaining.
P.S. If I'm going to reach my reading goal I have 354 days left to read 121 books (including the books I'm currently reading.
P.P.S. I just won another book from Goodreads Firstreads! This one is called Attila and it's about Attila the Hun... I'm pretty excited!
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