No One Makes You Shop at Wal-Mart: The Surprising Deceptions of Individual Choice
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No One Makes You Shop at Wal-Mart: The Surprising Deceptions of Individual Choice Customer Reviews
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♥♥♥♥♥ |
Good discussions of economic theory, mediocre at applying to real world
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This book is mostly a good overview for laymen of a wide range of theory that economists use to explain why individual choice doesn't create utopia. Those who know a good deal about economics won't find much new here.
His attempts to apply these theories to the real world are disappointing, but only make up a small part of the book, so they don't detract too much from its quality.
His description of how rational individual choices to shop at Walmart (irrationality is outside the scope of this book) could lead to consumers having fewer choices seems coherent but has no obvious connection with actual effects (but would seem plausible if applied to Microsoft). His description of how Walmart has negative effect on urban areas that used to host its competitors probably has a bit of truth to it, but it seems insignificant to me, and there's no obvious way to resolve disagreements over the importance of that effect.
His most surprising argument is against school choice. He describes a coherent model which implies the main effect of school choice is increased inequality. This conclusion appears to require that changes in teaching quality are unimportant compared to the influence of students on each other. He neglects to mention the unpopular implications this would have for what teachers' salaries ought to be. There's nothing obviously wrong with his position, but it's unclear whether the reference he provides as evidence for it says what he claims, and the evidence he claims it provides for the effects of students on each other would not be enough to warrant his implicit belittling of differences in teaching quality.
He points to a desirable effect of France's 35-hour workweek rules in limiting competition for status via work. Does this shift competition for status to something more constructive or less constructive? How does it affect innovation? He doesn't ask.
He seems to believe that his arguments should convince people to support collective action more often, but the main conclusion you ought to derive from them is that it's important to have a deep understanding of economics, and that we should be suspicious of people who form strong opinions on free markets and collective action based on simple ideologies. He keeps hinting that his arguments imply markets should be regulated more, but he rarely provides any guidance about what kind of regulations would be desirable, and few of the problems that he points out seem to be unique to free markets. |
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