Social Economics & the Masses.

Is it just me or is the world finally embracing economics? Is it just me or are they doing that because they are finally explaining economics in a way that makes sense to people.

It all seemed to have started with Freakaonomics, a fantastic book that showed us that whether or not we realize it that we are influenced in many ways-particularly by incentive.

Then Malcolm Gladwell came with Blink, A Tipping Point & Outliers. All of these books explain parts of our psyche in a psychology meets economics meets sociology kind of way-and I love it!

I have Blink on my night stand now and I’m halfway through. I haven’t delved into others of Gladwell’s yet, but that is because I am reading Superfreakanomics, a sequel if you will to the first. So far, it seems an even easier read than the first while still providing us with seemingly useless knowledge that proves patterns that are useful-and that is what makes them fun!

What I love about these types of books is that they give you useless trivia you never wanted to know but is fun to know-prostitution isn’t as financially rewarding as it used to be and if you teach monkeys to use money they will inevitably use indulge in crime and prostitution. But they also show you things we should know and we should be thinking of. For example they illustrate just how much big companies have influence over our laws and legislation. The statistical analysis they show is that car seats, as an example, are no more protective-even when properly installed- than a good old fashioned seat belt for those over two-when it comes to major injuries. They are more helpful for minor injuries. They argue that the reason car seats are a huge deal instead of getting automakers to make smaller seat belts for children for the backseat of the car is because of the powerful lobbying of industry. I think this is absolutely worth investigating and understanding. I think on some level we all know that the industry influences our politicians, even here in Canada. I mean, it can be the only logical reasoning for some of the decisions we see. But do we realize it has gone so far as things we now see as the norm are only the norm because industry has convinced us and our governments it should be?

This conversation can go on its own tangent and maybe it should-we can talk about bottled water, the book Consumed and things like that. But that isn’t my point today. My point is to illustrate how appreciative I am of the books like Freakanomics, Superfreakanomics, Blink and others who bring humor and easy writing to the world of economics so that we might begin to understand these things.

And for the record, Superfreakanomics doesn’t say you shouldn’t use a car seat. In fact they encourage it because it is found to protect better against small injuries which you are more likely to sustain.