Friday, March 23, 2007

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism


The anti-capitalists are still with us, and how. Robert Murphy has decided to give them an in-your-face economics education that they won't forget — ever.

His approach comes from years of teaching undergraduates and dealing with the most common errors. He also draws from his teaching experience at the Mises University to offer an Austrian perspective on economics.

He offers explanations and examples that are clear and compelling. What's wrong with zoning? Murphy explains it. Isn't outsourcing destroying America? On the contrary says Murphy: it is a wonderful for Americans! Shouldn't the rich fork over in the name of social justice? Murphy says that this would make us all poorer.

Isn't the Fed protecting us against depressions and inflations? Precisely the opposite, he says: the Fed is causing economic instability.

In so many ways, this book is a product of the Mises Institute. Murphy learned his economics at the Mises University (while getting his PhD at New York University) and then began to teach at our programs. He now serves as the headmaster of the Mises Institute online classroom.

This could be the most accessible and compelling introduction to free-market economics since Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson. Certainly economics has rarely been this fun! The socialists and Keynesian of the world will hate this book and make it a target of all their venom. But if they read it, they might learn something.

This book is sure to become a hot seller, and a major source of controversy on campuses. A previous book in this series landed on the New York Times bestseller list. How splendid to think that with this book, the Austrian perspective is receiving yet another boost in public life.

Some topics covered:

Why central planning has never worked and never will
How prices operate in a free market (and why socialist schemes like rent control always backfire)
How labor unions actually hurt workers more than they help them
Why increasing the minimum wage is always a bad idea
Why the free market is the best guard against racism
How capitalism will save the environment — and why socialist countries were the most polluted on earth
Raising taxes: why it is never "responsible"
Why no genuine advocate for the downtrodden could endorse the dehumanizing Welfare State
The single biggest myth underlying the public's support for government regulation of business
Antitrust suits: usually filed by firms that lose in free competition
How tariffs and other restrictions "protect" privileged workers but make other Americans poorer
The IMF and World Bank: why they don't help poor countries
Why the industrial revolution was the biggest boon for the middle class in human history
Plus: Are you a capitalist pig? Take the quiz and find out!

Breezy, witty, but always clear, precise, and elegantly reasoned, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism is a solid and entertaining guide to free market economics written from the perspective of the Austrian School.

Murphy deploys all his abundant talents here, and to spectacular effect.

1 comment:

Brainpolice said...

Ordered it yesterday :)