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Textbook Contest - Results
Many thanks for all the excellent suggestions for an epigraph for Modern Principles. Here were some of our favorites:
"He tried to read an elementary economics text; it bored him past endurance, it was like listening to someone interminably recounting a long and stupid dream."
Ursula K. Le Guin, "The Dispossessed"
We liked that this has an exoteric and esoteric meaning but we suspect that it would be hard to get past "the Corporation." (The esoteric meaning? The novel is about a communist utopia so it's really no surprise that the characters (and the author) think that elementary economics texts are boring!). Suggested by Dave C.
N. Gregory Mankiw
Suggested by Eli Dourado.
James J. Heckman
A close one. Suggested by Jared.
Suggested by Alex Tabarrok.
I liked it!
And the winner is:
I thought this phrase, which was suggested by Scott Gustafson, captured the joie de vivre and the love of economics that Tyler and I have tried to bring to Modern Principles. It's unclear who said this first, although nicely for us Russ Roberts used this phrase to describe Tyler's book Discover Your Inner Economist, thus there is some history.
Thanks everyone for your many helpful and excellent suggestions!
Posted by Alex Tabarrok on May 24, 2009 at 07:19 AM in Books | Permalink
Comments
vivre
Posted by: dearieme at May 24, 2009 8:41:13 AM
Well, The Dispossessed is about a planet that's either a communist utopia or a communist dystopia, and Le Guin makes a fairly convincing case both ways. If the book's politics are anything, they're closer to anarchist. And the conclusion is a fairly strong statement about non-rivalrous, non-excludable goods.
Posted by: James Grimmelmann at May 24, 2009 10:04:06 AM
I don't like it. It confuses the important distinction between personal life improvements ("self-help" books) and the catallaxy in which knowledge and opinions about the "good life" are far from homogeneous. Getting the most -- for the least -- may be a reasonable rendition of the economic principle for a given individual. But "economics" is far more than that.
Posted by: Mario Rizzo at May 24, 2009 11:16:12 AM
George Bernard Shaw said, "Economy is the art of making the most of life."
Posted by: Michael Bishop at May 24, 2009 11:19:32 AM
Did you have fun reading the suggestions? I thought some of them would make excellent writing assignments. "Begin a story with the preceding quotation. End it with the following" :-)
Posted by: Jared at May 24, 2009 11:36:26 AM
"Supply and demand."
-Father Guido Sarducci
Posted by: weimar at May 24, 2009 12:30:26 PM
Economics is an adventure, an exploration into the realm of social order. But who would want to explore a realm called "social order"? Which is why, to pass this class, we are forcing you to study this book.
Posted by: Gregory Rehmke at May 24, 2009 1:13:27 PM
Economists- hand maidens of the politicians.
Posted by: Yancey Ward at May 24, 2009 1:37:45 PM
Shame - the Mankiw one is the best!
Posted by: Robert at May 24, 2009 9:44:56 PM
It's not a communist utopia! It's an anarchist non-libertarian topia! There is no state on Anarres. But a fearsome amount of social control via brainwashing is exercised over the citizens by the culture. Rousseau would say that the citizens of Anarres are not free but they are virtuous--and that maybe virtue is the best we can get...
Posted by: Brad DeLong at May 24, 2009 11:02:05 PM
Well, at least in the book itself, Anarres is described as a mining colony.
But I much prefer this quote -
“For we each of us deserve everything, every luxury that was piled in the tombs of the dead kings, and we each of us deserve nothing, not a mouthful of bread in hunger. Have we not eaten while another starved? Will you punish us for that? Will you reward us for the virtue of starving while others ate? No man earns punishment, no man earns reward. Free your mind of the idea of deserving, the idea of earning, and you will begin to be able to think.”
(And noticing that the words of a man that supported tenure for a torturer are just above mine, one who uses the word 'virtue,' is sickening.)
Posted by: not_scottbot at May 25, 2009 5:01:29 AM
I partially agree with Brad - it's not communist, it's anarchist. However, I'm not sure how you got "non-libertarian" in there.
I'm not sure I would call it a utopia. It is a stark description of the reality of a viable anarchist society, warts and all, compared and contrasted with capitalist and communist societies, which have their own warts.
Posted by: Eric H at May 25, 2009 4:02:22 PM
Communism in its final stage!
Posted by: Alex Tabarrok at May 25, 2009 5:01:04 PM
'Communism in its final stage!'
You mean that the final stage of communism is to be a minor appendage of a dominant capitalist system, at least in terms of the novel's framework?
The lack of surprise at such a perspective here is equally unsurprising.
But even less surprising is the complete confusion between communism and anarcho-syndicalistm, not to mention the idea of a society reflecting the insights of Kropotkin's Mutual Aid, especially in the light of the harsh living conditions on Anarres, having nothing to do with communism in any sense.
Why do I have the unpleasant feeling that Le Guin's Taoist perspective in the Lathe Of Heaven would be equally misunderstood here as a fable exposing the flaws of top down utopian planning?
Posted by: not_scottbot at May 26, 2009 2:27:58 AM
The Mankiw quote made me laugh- who knows, maybe I'll have another favorite economics textbook soon. :) Too bad the joke would be lost on the reader...
Posted by: Jodi Beggs at May 26, 2009 1:19:32 PM
Economics teaches us that all men choose the option with the best incentives, but only after exhausting all other options.
(to paraphrase Abba Eban ;-)
Posted by: kp at May 26, 2009 2:27:21 PM
How about adding an extra sentence to your final selection:
Economics is the study of how to get the most out of life, and help others do it as well.
Posted by: Sergio at May 29, 2009 12:21:49 PM
Alex, did we read the same book? As I recall, "communism in its final stage" was portrayed in the book in pretty much its only stage here on earth: oppressive militaristic dictatorship that forms a mirror image of actually existing state-capitalism. Anarchy, on the other hand, was portrayed very differently.
Posted by: Eric H at Jun 1, 2009 9:16:30 PM
