The Best Book on the Market: How to stop worrying and love the free economy (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"…Chancellor Geoffrey Howe…has endorsed a new tome by Adam Smith Institute boss Eamonn Butler on the power of free markets." (The Evening Standard, Monday 31st March 2008)

"...well written...full of rather good anecdotes about markets" (Dr Grumble Blog, September 26, 2008)

Product Description

The free market makes the world go around. Maybe it’s time we all tried to understand it a little better. Luckily Eamonn Butler is the ideal teacher to get us all up to speed.

Markets are everywhere. But how many of us understand how they work, and why? What does a ‘free market’ really mean? Do free markets actually exist? Should we have more or less of them? Most of all – do we really need to know all this? Answer: Yes we do.

MAKING ECONOMICS SIMPLE SO THAT EVEN POLITICIANS CAN UNDERSTAND IT

If any mention of free markets sends your mind screaming back to your musty old school economics textbook, think again. The Best Book on the Market will keep you gripped, intrigued and well informed. Abandoning complicated mumbo-jumbo, Eamonn Butler, Director of the UK’s leading free market think-tank, demystifies the world of markets, competition, monopolies and cartels, prices and overspills. Using examples from our everyday lives Dr Butler explains how the markets we have, and the many more we need, can work to create a richer, freer and more peaceful world.

STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE FREE ECONOMY

He delves into the morality of markets and interrogates important issues such as why feckless rock-stars are paid much more than worthy nurses; whether we should worry about people trading in arms, water, healthcare etc; whether black markets are immoral; and questions of equality; sweatshops, and fair trade.

 

“This book is about the free market and how unfree it can be when there is a lack of belief in freedom itself. Eamonn Butler presents solid arguments against government attempts to ‘perfect’ the markets by regulation, controls, subsidies, or by adopting measures which obstruct competition and private ownership.”

Václav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic

 

“Vividly and simply explains competition, entrepreneurship and prices”.

 John Blundell, Director, Institute of Economic Affairs

  “A great little book that gets to the heart of how and why markets work, in a very engaging and easily understood way”.

Dan Lewis, Research Director, Economic Research Council 

  “I welcome this witty, lucid explanation of how entrepreneurs and business people make a positive contribution to our lives, and why economists often don't”.

Andrew Neil , leading journalist and BBC presenter

“Anything which educates the public - and politicians  - on how the free economy actually works is always welcome.  Dr Butler does this in style”.

Lord Lawson, former UK Chancellor of the Exchequer

“Everyone in business would do well to understand the basic principles of markets which Dr Butler clarifies so well in this short book”.

Allister Heath, Editor of The Business and Associate Editor of The Spectator 

"This book does great justice to the vibrancy of markets and what makes them tick"

Ruth Richardson, former Finance Minister of New Zealand

"It's refreshing to see an economist who understands the importance of innovation and entrepreneurship in pushing progress forward, and who can explain it in straightforward language."

Trevor Baylis OBE (inventor of the wind-up radio)

"I'm glad to see that Dr Butler stresses the role of innovators – and the importance of market structures that encourage innovation."

Sir Clive Sinclair (inventor)

"Dr Butler's book is a welcome and very readable contribution on the mechanisms and morality of the free economy."

Sir John Major KG CH (former UK Prime Minister)

“'Market' is one of the first six-letter words that every English-speaking child learns: as in 'This - little - piggy - went - to - market'”.

Geoffrey Howe, former UK Chancellor of the Exchequer

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 172 pages
• Publisher: Capstone (July 8, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1906465053
• ISBN-13: 978-1906465056
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #785,289 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A very sharp and effective introduction to market economics, July 2, 2008

By	Thomas H. Burroughes "Bookish" (London) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I think Dr Butler has penned an excellent, succinct and effective introduction to the case for liberal, free markets. It is particularly effective for anyone who has not encountered these arguments before, because it is fair, jargon-free and resists the temptation to ram home the ideologial message too hard.

It covers all the main bases well. If I have a tiny quibble, I would argue that on complex issues such as patents, copyright and limited liability companies, it might have been useful to explain that even among ardent free marketeers, there is a lot of debate on whether, for example, patents are either justified or right.

But that is a minor point. This book ranks alongside such works as Basic Economics by Tom Sowell, Free To Choose by Milton Friedman and Economics In One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt as a superb introduction to the field. It can be read easily in an hour or so. It should be on the reading list of young students interested in business and might help to counter a lot of lazy, statist thinking.

5.0 out of 5 stars Even better than Freakonomics, June 24, 2008

By	Thomas (London) - See all my reviews

This is a fantastic explanation of how markets really work and why they're so important to our everyday lives. The book's economics are spot on, but this doesn't feel like an economics book. It's a very easy read, for one thing. The author uses fascinating, real-life examples to explain his points without lapsing into technical jargon. People tend think of markets as cold and impersonal - something that 'compassionate' governments need to take control of - but this book shows how markets are actually a fundamental part of human life and work to benefit us all. The author makes some pretty important points, then, but somehow he manages to keep the book fun and amusing at the same time. Highly recommended.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Book On The Market, June 25, 2008

By	Terence Arthur "Terry Arthur" (UK) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Eamonn Butler, Director of the Adam Smith Institute, has a wonderful ability to express the fundamentals of economics and exchange in ways that lay readers can understand and enjoy - and empathise. This ability combines with an essential technique - to start at the beginning! The path from a single deal between two consenting people (possibly in different countries) to large-scale free enterprise, is a simple continuum. Requiring only the freedom to associate, at every point participants are free to exchange - or not - and the choice may or may not be made with regard to ancillary matters such as specialist advice and contracts. Thus Dr Butler starts with a visit to a street market in Lanzhou, China, and ends (or nearly ends) in discussing multi-national companies. On the way, he covers most of the important consequences of this freedom; for example specialisation and exchange, (to the point where exchange is the fundamental social relation) money, the informative role of prices, and capital accumulation.


Dr Butler is (among other things) a proper economist. By this I mean he has no time for the Keynesian macro-economics churned out by most universities; markets, and life itself, are never in equilibrium, so why build up a "science" on the assumption that they are? There is no Utopia; it's just that markets and freedom from governments are much nearer to it, adjusting constantly in their quests to do better. As he says, "the free-exchange system [markets] has an uncanny power to steer the right resources to the right place at the right time". "Unorganised order", he calls it. In contrast government is working in a vacuum; its operations are based on whims not price signals, and it torpedoes markets whenever it can (starting with money, where "governments manage to make paper completely worthless by printing pictures of dead presidents on it").


Dr Butler rightly castigates big government as the arch-enemy of markets, censoring them and their miraculous signals at every turn. Yet the failure of government projects is an endemic feature, while their perpetrators sing the "market failure" mantra at every opportunity - nowhere more loudly than on the environment, where as Dr Butler points out, markets don't exist.


He might have added "because they were nationalised". But elaborating on that takes time and space, whilst a major feature of this wonderful little book is that it is, well, little; you can read it in one sitting - although many readers will use it as a handy reference as well.


The book is similarly succinct in addressing government regulation of business. Often deliberately sought as a means of protection from competition, this practice is rife and provides government with a scapegoat when things go wrong. (A thorough nailing of this issue and its true causes is long overdue.)


Dr Butler has touched on scores of other matters which are best dealt with by markets not governments - the benefits of competition, prices as messengers, transaction costs, externalities, (where tax itself remains the supreme externality) patents, licences, entrepreneurs (as opposed to "experts") the crucial role of property, and the essential morality of free markets. (Enforced behaviour has no moral component, of course, and in any case charities are within the free market rather than outside it.)


Definitely the best book on the market that's on the market!