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Morals and Markets: An Evolutionary Account of the Modern World | 
 enlarge | Author: Daniel Friedman
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Category: Book
List Price: $35.00
Buy New: $25.00
You Save: $10.00 (29%)
New (19) Used (8) from $22.00
Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 636608
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 268
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.2 x 0.9
ISBN: 0230600972
Dewey Decimal Number: 174.4
EAN: 9780230600973
ASIN: 0230600972
Publication Date: September 16, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Economist and evolutionary game theorist Daniel Friedman demonstrates that our moral codes and our market systems-while often in conflict-are really devices evolved to achieve similar ends, and that society functions best when morals and markets are in balance with each other.
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| Customer Reviews:
A must read for those questioning today if capitalism is divorced from morals October 27, 2008
Emc2 (Tropical Utopia)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Under the current global financial crisis, critics of laissez-faire economics are calling it the end of capitalism. Under this context, Friedman's book is very timely because it provides the layman with the basic conceptual foundations to understand how free markets work, how they developed, their direct relationship with moral codes, and a briefing on previous and catastrophic market failures, such as the one we are experiencing today. One caveat though. Despite the fact of one chapter being devoted to financial markets and its occasional crashes, this book does not address specifically the ongoing crisis, as its publication date almost coincided with the burst of the global financial crash last September.
The book is well written, in simple language, full of anecdotes, and despite dealing with economics, it is accessible to the general public. The author left the more technical details for a technical appendix, followed by chapter notes, plus a full bibliography, provided for those interested in a follow-up. My only complaint regarding Friedman writing style is that despite being a well written and very interesting book, this is no page-turner. Somehow his style does not allow a free flow of the reading, as he sometimes stops unnecessarily on minute details, or branches out to secondary topics, making you lose track of the main idea, and with so much info to digest, the reader might end up momentarily lost.
The first four chapters present an amazing historical "fast rewind" on evolution, starting 2.5 million years ago beginning with Homo habilis, all the way up to Homo sapiens around 200 thousand years ago, explaining how our ancestors spread around the planet, how civilization was born, how moral codes developed, and how markets came into existence as a result of civilization. Just the content of these chapters makes worthwhile reading the book, a truly crash course on our origin, our history and society's evolution.
The next two chapters deal in detail about some recent economic crisis, Russia's "kleptocracy" and Japan's economic bubbles. These chapters clearly illustrate the opposite poles of market failures, complete lack of morals and excess of morals. Up to here (half the way into the book), my expectations were completely fulfilled, but the following chapter on financial markets (and occasional crashes!) mark the beginning of my disappointment, as this chapter reflects the main weakness of the book. The author decided to sacrifice in-depth analysis of key interesting subjects in exchange for covering more terrain on multiple subjects. For example, this chapter just barely mentions the US subprime mortgage crisis, and definitively the section "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" should have been extended, as the model presented clearly explains every phase of the crisis we are experiencing today. Also, I really would have liked to have an explanation of why nobody saw the mortgage bubble burst coming. Despite these complaints, the book presents enough material to provide a conceptual foundation for the layman to understand the basics of the ongoing financial crash in terms of the divorce of markets from morals.
In the following three chapters Friedman takes the reader into a fast trip covering a lot of subjects, from Google and E-Bay success, through markets for vices (alcohol and tobacco), the mafia, gangs, all the way up to al-Qaeda's terrorists. Again, so much is covered that a deeper analysis on key subjects had to be sacrificed. Chapter 11 deals with a key and very interesting issue for the twenty-first century global society, the "Tragedy of the Commons." The subject is one more time approached from the historical perspective, closing with the green crusade and climate change. Unfortunately I was left wanting for more, as only three pages are dedicated to the interesting subjects of greenhouse gas markets, including "cap-and-trade" and "carbon taxes". The book closes with Friedman's interesting reflections on how a better marriage can be built between morals and markets.
PD (Rain check): As the book's publication date did not allow covering the current and now global financial crisis, I hope it sells well enough to merit a second edition. In such scenario, the following is my wish list for an updated edition. Instead of branching to many topics, and by sparing the technical appendix (it is really too academic), the book could cover instead the development and evolution of the US housing bubble, the resulting 2007-08 subprime mortgage crisis, followed by the 2008 global financial crash that resulted in the current economic recession, just in a similar style as the Enron case was presented in the book's Prologue. I really would like to know Friedman's take using his behavioral and game theory framework, regarding the financial gimmicks and the exotic instruments used to cover up the bad credits; the role of the predominant rapid profit making mentality; greed vs rational decisions; how it was possible such a collective delusion; and how come almost nobody saw the problem coming, allowing a financial crisis now sending ripples all over the world. Another subject in the top of my wish list is a deeper analysis on several of the "Tragedy of the Commons" situations the world is facing today, and that we can only expect to worsen in the future, beginning with those related with pollution and climate change, in the context of non-cooperative global players. Also I would like to know about the sustainability of so many vital natural resources (water, food supplies, etc.) that are becoming scarce, and also about what to do when cities are approaching the physical capacity of some public services and infrastructure, that are becoming too expensive or economically unfeasible to upgrade. For example, I would really like to hear Friedman's take about congestion pricing, now that is going from theory to practice, and hotly debated in the context of urban traffic congestion and airport landing slots saturation. Can game theory help us with these modern dilemmas? Can the marriage between morals and markets survive?
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