Customer Reviews

Fair Play

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Numerous books have been written on applying economics to everyday life, but Steve Landsburg's latest book employs a paradigm that puts it head and shoulders above the rest. His interactions with his daughter Cayley put a fascinating spin on things as her experiences and actions are filtered through the eyes of an economist. Landsburg points out again and again how we hold adults to a different, and lower, standard than we hold children, how we tell things to other adults that we would never say to a child and that adults accept excuses and reasoning from other adults that we would never accept from children.

Landsburg sometimes departs from the father-daughter paradigm to discuss issues that don't always fit in the with the rest of the book, but are fascinating none-the-less. Landsburg has a talent for making you think about an issue in novel ways. His analysis of minimum wage laws is clever and principled and nothing like you've ever heard before. Landsburg sheds the same critical light on everything from affirmative action to the rights of the unconceived.

But this is more than a book about economics. It's about what principles we want to use to guide our lives. It's about families. It's about a lot of other things too, but it's especially about fun. If you don't laugh out loud several times while reading this book, you need to have your head examined. Only the most determined curmudgeon could read this without cracking a smile at least once.

Steven Landsburg is extraordinarily gifted both as an economist and as a writer. He proves what many economists lazily deny: that economics can be made accessible to those untutored in the subject. Not only will non-economists learn oodles from this spirited book, so too will economists. The only nit I have to pick is Landsburg's analysis of minimum-wage legislation. I find his analysis of such legislation unpersuasive (though clever). The rest of the book is a genuine intellectual delight.

As a parent and a citizen-of-earth, I enjoyed (almost) every page of this book. Landsburg helps the reader to think through some issues which are much more "black and white" than our society seems to think they are. Seeking for truth? Be careful of what you wish for. Some of the truths that Landsburg finds in his daughter's life and the way he wants to bring her up will shine some light in corners you may not want to look at. In particular, I was very moved by his views on how our society treats the most productive and successful among us. You will never listen to a Bill Gates joke the same way again. I loved this book! After borrowing it from a friend, I am buying my own copy. Worth owning and worth reading!

Awesome book for anyone who wants to understand basic economics and the moral and practical rammifications of public policy. Well written and easy to understand even for the economically inept.

Most important lesson: always be skeptical and critical of everything you read, hear, or see. Always apply logic and common sense to draw your own conclusions. AC.CHB

I agree that "Fair Play" is an entertaining read, and generally somewhat worthwhile; although you'd do better to read Robert Kiyosaki's financial books. "Fair Play" approaches a subject we Americans are grossly under-educated in from a plain-english, down-to-earth perspective. Nearly everyone can stand to be enlightened by this book. The author does have his faults, however; and they usually stem from his desire to force-feed economic theory, at the expense of all other logic, into every area of sociology. At one point, he tries to adjudge the number of forests to be saved by their price of admission!?? At another point, he starts off with a discussion of our responsibility to future generations, and somehow arrives at the idea that even un-conceived humans should have legal rights. Chapter 13, in which he takes a stab at explaining away environmental issues using pure economic theory, contains so many single-minded leaps of logic that it actually discredits the author, and the book. Thank goodness economists are not the caretakers of our environment, or the earth would be paved over, and unlivable!

Chapter 9 on the "perfect tax," which disgusted a previous reviewer, I found to be a sarcastic exercise in futility. I found it somewhat amusing and illustrative. I don't think Landsburg was being serious, because a truly serious discussion of the "perfect tax" would have to include the concept of consumption taxes.

On the positive side, of which there is plenty, here is a quick example of the kind of economic enlightenment this book can provide: "$1,000 invested seventy years ago would be worth about $13,000 today if invested in bonds, or about $850,000 if invested in stocks." And paraphrasing: bondholding is 25 times more conservative than any other type of risk-related behavior... this "is a paradox that economists call the equity premium puzzle." Again, on balance, an admirable, though flawed, attempt at delivering economic knowledge to the layperson.

A life is full of inequality. Just because we were born during the time when we still have room to grow, we may be happier than our children or grandchildren. The author believes that the more we get larger populations, the more inovated in terms of technology or similar matter to keep our sustainability. In fact, this book of full of imressive ideas that encourage us to overcome the limit to think. When you read "Fair Play." You are going to cry, "that's not fair!"

This book is a faithful documentation of what it is like for a loving father, who happens to be an economist, raises his daughter. He talks about instilling a sense of justice in a child, while implanting his own biases in a new generation. The oversimplification of grand issues makes it easy to nit-pick his statements, but I find myself captivated by the progress of his thougths anyhow. Written in the tone of his much beloved lunch conversations, I feel like I have eaten lunch with Landsberg each day for a month. His has a wonderful writing style and I would recomend this book to any economist who either teaches or has children -- it will help translate ideas to the laity.

Much of this book will make you say "Hmmmm... I never thought about it like that. He does have a point."

Chapter 17: "The Arithmetic of Conservation" was particularly enlightening.

Although some of Landsburg's analysis is great, I only give him 3 stars because much of the book contains a contradiction - Landsburg claims that there is no right and wrong - no good or bad, but at the same time, he is advocating a system! For an economist of this caliber, I was disgusted with Chapter 9: "The Perfect Tax".

I probably would have liked this book better had the author not adopted such a smug attitude of moral and intellectual superiority. I also feel sorry for his daughter if he truly interacts with her as he claims.