Rating: 
Summary: Looney liberals versus Free marketeers
Review: This is an interesting economics book that contrasts free market economic theory versus liberal (or socialist) ideas. The econ teacher is a free market guy but, alas, the girl he wants is a liberal. Naturally, she thinks he is a real screwball. For example, she likes to give homeless folks V8 juice instead of pocket change. He says they want money for drugs or alcohol and will find the V8 useless unless they can sell it. The free market guy winds up losing his job for being "a looney" even though the author agrees with him on everything. I think the book would have been more effective if the free market guy's ideas won people over but the authors outcome is probably closer to the truth. In any event, this book teaches sound economic principals.
Rating: 
Summary: Economics: Enjoyable, Accessible, Engaging, Relevant
Review: With THE INVISIBLE HEART, Russell Roberts proves himself to be among the small handful of young economists who excel at communicating sound economic ideas to a broad audience. Communication talent of the sort possessed by Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell, and Walter Williams is too rare - and getting rarer as economic instruction becomes increasingly abstract. But Roberts proves that not all economists under the age of 50 are incapable of bringing economics to life for a wide audience.Roberts is truly a master at teaching the economic way of thinking - and teaching it in ways that almost anyone will find engaging and compelling. As with his superb first book, THE CHOICE, Roberts here uses the dialogue to convey economic insights. But unlike that first book, THE INVISIBLE HEART touches on an impressively wide array of subjects (rather than just international trade). The reader learns solid reasons to be skeptical of today's shrieking environmental alarmists - solid reasons to question the effectiveness of government welfare programs - solid reasons for applauding, rather than condemning, corporations who set up factories paying market wages in third-world countries - indeed, solid reasons for even non-economists to think like economists. Most importantly, the reader learns that good economists are the very last people to believe that money is all that matters. Russell Roberts is unequaled in his ability to show that free markets generate not only impressive coordination and efficiency and material bounty, but also an unprecedented profusion of humane results. The market's invisible hand works side by side with its equally robust invisible heart. This book is an excellent introduction to economics and, more generally, to the philosophy of freedom.
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