June 21, 2023
Check out my gifted co-author’s newest book, Strangers with Candy: Observations from the Ordinary Business of Life.
Art is one of the most gifted living communicators of economics to the general public. That’s why I think in this instance that you’ll find engaging in a little act of impersonal exchange, facilitated by a middleman like Amazon, is mutually beneficial.
From Amazon’s description:
“Jesus tells us to love the Lord our God and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Ironically, a lot of the things we do to help people actually harm them, and a lot of the things we do without much thought to their global ramifications actually feed, clothe, and shelter the world. Economics studies people’s choices and their unintended consequences, and Strangers with Candy collects dozens of articles in which an economist in early middle age explains and reflects on those unintended consequences. In its pages, we learn that there are no meaningful limits to economic progress, office workers around the world get paid in money and drugs, prohibitionists should eat more Grape-Nuts if they want people to drink less beer, and people who want to help the poor should be working to repeal minimum wages, not raise them.”
Inside, you’ll find a collection of high-quality essays like this one:
“Everyone knows the story: Never take candy from a stranger. Or get in the car with a stranger. Or make eye contact with a stranger. After all, you don’t know who they are. They’re strangers. They are other, outside the tribe, not among the set of people with whom we interact regularly. Their intentions may not be honorable.
And yet there I was, at my son’s birthday party, staring at a table littered with candy we had taken from strangers that we were planning to give to our kids and their friends. Even where we knew who had made the finished good — my wife and kids had baked and decorated the birthday cake — there are strangers at every turn along the path from raw and naked earth to the cake that was set before us. The eggs, milk, flour, and sugar that went into the cake? Strangers bought them from other strangers before selling them to us. My family used spoons and scrapers made by strangers and bought from other strangers to mix all the ingredients. They baked the cake in an oven made by strangers. They colored the icing with an unholy mix of chemicals made by strangers. And those strangers rely for their daily bread on still other armies of strangers.”
Highly recommended!