The reason I make that suggestion is that you honestly believe we have true free market capitalism, not to mention, a free market in the U.S or any country for that matter. The U.S. economy is nothing more than a fascist state-socialist controlled mixed economy. Corporatism at best.

So I sincerely encourage you brush up on your facts before you start taking stabs at something you obviously know nothing about.

All the best to you.

“Who shall guard the guardians?”

On the Freakonomics blog recently, Ian Ayres reviewed my book, and singled out a story I tell there. Ian has written many books himself, so it isn’t surprising which story, of the many stories in my book, he discussed.

He picked out a section near the end of the book, where I describe my efforts to interest a leading editor in my book idea. After asking to know the bottom-line, take-home message of my book, the editor asked me whether I was “aiming for a nuanced argument?” I responded yes, and then explained how I hoped to write a nuanced book that could nevertheless be marketed with a crisp sound bite. I lost his interest at the word “yes.”

Anyone trying to write a political book the last few years knows about this other “n” word: Nuance.

What I most want people to keep in mind, as they continue this lively discussion in the Predictably Irrational blog, is this one word:

Nuance.

In Free Market Madness, I try to do three things:

(1) Entertain readers with surprising examples of the often hidden forces that influence the way we humans think, decide and behave. I show the peculiar mix of rational and irrational that make up human nature, the often surprising combination of conscious and unconscious decisions that determine our life trajectories. Did you know, for example, that people named Paul are more likely to migrate to St. Paul, Minnesota than are people named Joe, unconsciously influenced by what social psychologists call implicit egotism?

(2) Give readers a brief and colorful history of the link between economists’ beliefs in human rationality and libertarians’ faith in free markets to promote people’s best interests. Readers of my book will see that I am a huge fan of capitalism and liberty. But I also recognize that completely unfettered markets can harm not only those people who make unwise decisions, but have spillover effects on everyone else; that consumers’ choices aren’t as “free” as we think, because we humans can be manipulated by those who understand our weaknesses. Tobacco companies, for instance, when forced to run public service ads, have created television campaigns that, while on the surface seem to discourage teens from smoking, actually make them more interested in smoking!

(3) Nuance, baby, nuance. We have to find a balance between liberty and well-being, when the two collide. Freedom is a good, on its own, but freedom to take out mortgages we cannot afford, after being persuaded to do so by people who can make money off our decisions, can lead to widespread economic disaster.

Government regulations always have costs. But there are costs, too, in standing by on the sidelines and leaving everything up to the market. My hope is to get people arguing less about the extremes– capitalism versus socialism; freedom versus government control– and more about the large, gray zone in the middle, a zone where I expect we will often find the best policies.

This is typical elitist thinking that people can’t run their own lives- i.e be responsible for their own health. Please, run my life for me, I’m too feeble to think for myself.