Unconventional Wisdom

It has become a trend for economists to write mainstream books like Freakonomics. The latest that I read in this genre is one with a misleading title. I will come to the title later, but the book puts forth a lot of unconventional arguments. One is that patents are bad, another is that firemen should keep the assets that they save from a fire, and yet another is that a high population is good for all of humanity. I will not get into the details (I am not sure that I can!), but it is an engaging way to spend your afternoon, or evening, or night to read this book. In general, his argument is that the law of Karma should be applied to situations to decide who gets the incentives and pays for costs of his actions- the doer!

There are some real gems, like "the Labour minister steals from the farmers and business, the Commerce minister steals from the workers and farmers, and the Agricultural minister steals from the workers and business, to benefit their own constituencies- the workers, the businesses, and the farmers, respectively". Of course, in the American context. But he also points out that people in general have benefited from progress only over the last 50-100 years in terms of a rise in income and choices of lifestyle.

A real good observation is that Americans (or Westerners, in general) have no right to lecture third world countries on issues like child labour, because parents of the children can take care of this, and secondly, because American parents also did the same (supported their children working) for survival a couple of hundred years ago.

All in all, an interesting read. The (misleading) title of the book? More Sex is safer sex.