Product Description

David Friedman has never taken an economics class in his life. Sure, he's taught economics at UCLA. Chicago, Tulane, Cornell, and Santa Clara, but don't hold that against him. After all, everyone's an economist. We all make daily decisions that rely, consciously or not, on an acute understanding of economic theory--from picking the fastest checkout tine at the supermarket to voting or not voting, from negotiating the best job offer to finding the right person to marry.

Hidden Order is an essential guide to rational living, revealing all you need to know to get through each day without being eaten alive. Friedman's wise and immensely accessible book is perfect for amateur economists, struggling economics students, young parents and professionals--just about anyone who wants a clear-cut approach to why we make the choices we do and a sensible strategy for how to make the right ones.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #794521 in Books
• Published on: 1996-06-25
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 352 pages

From Amazon.com
To David Friedman (son of Milton Friedman), economics explains everything. In a way, that's an odd thing for him to say: Friedman Jr. has never taken an economics course in his life (by training he's a physicist). Yet he defines economics broadly and uses it as a tool to understand all aspects of human behavior, from selecting a mate to picking a grocery store line to switching lanes in rush-hour traffic jams. If you like the economics-for-everyman approach of such writers as Steven E. Landsburg, then Friedman is for you.

From Publishers Weekly
Friedman puts the passion back into economics with this unconventional, demanding primer. A professor at Santa Clara University (and son of Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman), he insists that economics is not primarily about money, but rather about needs, wants, choices, values?an imperfect science predicated on the assumption that people tend to rationally choose the best way to achieve their objectives. Using scores of everyday examples to steer the reader through complex concepts, he discusses consumer preferences, street crime, lotteries, plea bargains in trials, sharecropping, financial speculation, political campaign spending and much else. He demystifies international trade (e.g., there's nothing inherently bad about a trade deficit) and deconstructs the economy as an interacting system all of whose elements are interdependent. A rewarding text for serious readers. Translation and U.K. rights: Writer's Representatives.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Friedman (economics, Santa Clara Univ.) has written what he terms an unconventional presentation of the principles of economics. Using generally lively language, although there are also some dreary stretches of technical jargon, he tries to show how these principles determine the basic elements of the economy, such as prices and values, and how they are involved in explaining spending, saving, and investment behavior. Friedman is a strong supporter of the free-market system as the one that makes the economy work best. The framework of his analysis (not too clearly laid out in the text) is essentially that of the classical economists starting with Adam Smith (1776) as expanded and elaborated by his followers in the 19th and 20th centuries. Modern economic theories, particularly those of John Maynard Keynes, so influential in the post-World War II years, are given short shrift. An optional purchase for public libraries.?Harry Frumerman, formerly with Hunter Coll., New York
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

A Useful Tool
The title of this book alone sparked intrigue for me. I am not a business savvy student and sometimes I fail to remain interested in what we read in our textbooks. So when I saw that a book could explain the relevance to everyday life, I was ready to read.
The great thing about this book is that every idea, every thought, every lesson is backed up by an example. The examples are not fabricated situations that seem impossible in real life. They are applicable to our daily lives. David Friedman uses everything from the grocery store lines to traffic jams to help explain concepts such as economic equilibrium. By using real examples that pertain to my life, I am able to see economics more clearly.
Reading this book along with an economic textbook is a great idea. It gives a different perspective on important lessons to help give complete understanding. It's not a particularly easy read, but if it is taken seriously, it is a great tool to help understand economics. I would recommend it to anyone striving to learn more.

Hidden Order: An AP Microeconomics Student's Perspective
This book was easy to read, helpful, and gave interesting and unique examples for common economic theories. This is a great book to use in an AP class! Paired with our economics textbook, this reading explained the phenomena that we read about in the textbook.

Buyer Be Wary
This is one of those books I thought I was really going to like. It has that attitude--you know--where you think you're going to end up knowing true stuff about interesting aspects of everyday economic life that ordinary people are always misinformed about. Not!

I had to stop reading after three chapters, well four actually, as I skipped to Chapter 17 which was supposedly going to make the potato subsidy analysis more realistic (a promise unfulfilled as far as I could tell).

This may be the worst book on economics, or the worst book period, I have attempted to read in a while. Why is it so bad? Let me count the ways.

For starters, the writing is terrible. Try this "sentence": "SO if 10% more income is enough to let me buy what I bought last year, THEN 10% more income would make me better off than I was last year, SO some smaller increase in income would make me as well off as I was last year, SO prices have increased by less than 10%." [capitalizations not in original] If that resonates with you, you may like the book.

Blatant errors come quickly: in the very first pair of graphs, one is wrong.

Perhaps there is an clue early on that the reader should be wary of taking any of this book seriously. When discussing the economics of reselling textbooks in Chapter 2, Friedman says, "In more realistic cases the answer is more complicated." That should be a label tacked on every analysis I've looked at in the book.

The analyses are often misleading at best and completely in error at worst. If you get this book, make sure you first understand indifference curves, as the book relies on them but does not explain them. One is tempted to think the lack of explanation is purposeful, as the measure they represent is an imaginary quantity: utils; and the difference between two sets of utils (i.e., two indifference curves) in any given analysis could be inconsequential (or not). Secondly, and very importantly, make sure you precisely label and put representative numbers on each graph's axes--again something that Friedman does not do (one wonders why). Finally, don't buy into any results unless you're pretty sure all relevant factors are considered.

Chapter 3 begins the graphical analyses and muddled methodology is soon apparent as Friedman purports to prove changes in house prices in either direction always make you better off! Label the axes appropriately, assign representative numbers along each, apply a percentage for selling costs for the sell-and-buy-another-house option budget lines, draw everything correctly, and you will see that his analysis and conclusion are erroneous.

This book is probably a good read for zealous adherents of conservative/libertarian economic philosophy who will find ammunition for preconceived notions and not care if the quality of analysis is good or bad--it sounds good. I don't know who else might want to slog through this. Instead, if you are somewhat literate in economic theory, try Keen's Debunking Economics for better logic, deeper insight, and more realistic economics.