Freaky How Things Work

“The black-white income gap is largely a product of a black-white education gap that could have been observed many years earlier. “Reducing the black-white test score gap,” wrote the authors of one study, “would do more to promote racial equality than any other strategy that commands broad political support.” (Levitt, Dubner) This, along with many others, is an example of a real world problem that Freakonomics, a book about exploration of the hidden side of everything, introduces a solution to. I just finished reading this book and I found it fascination the perspective that these two men had on the subject of economics. While it was a slow book at times, I really enjoyed many of the aspects to it. The ideas were relatable to my life and frighteningly true.

This book explores the inner workings of things the average American would only see at face value like the secrets of the Klu Klux Klan, the hidden secrets of real estate agents, and the inner hierarchy of a crack gang. The first major point that was brought up that interested me was that incentives can bring even the most innocent and kind human beings to do crazy things. The example raised was one about school teachers changing kids test answers in order to keep their jobs. In Chicago public schools standardized tests were administered to students to ensure that teachers were giving their students adequate instruction. Teachers were worried that they could lose their job so they changed students answers to guarantee that they would pass. There was a huge incentive here, aka teachers and a threat to their income, and so they had to do they only thing they could think of to keep the lifestyle they had: cheat. I found this fascinating because its crazy how even people with the best intentions can find a way around the system to get what they want. 

Another topic discussed in Freakonomics that I thought was very alluring was the concept of a name and how it can affect someones lifestyle in a huge way that you would never expect. “Names are seen to carry great aesthetic or even predictive powers” (Levitt, Dubner 163). They then went on to talk about the fact that people with seemingly black names would get a shockingly smaller amount of callbacks for jobs compared to someone with a white sounding name. 

One thing that I enjoyed about this book was the clever topics that were discussed. The chapter titles were very clever and got you intrigued before you even started reading. “Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live With Their Moms?” was one of my favorite examples of this cleverness. It makes you think about the fact that is is a true statement and then wonder why on earth that happens. 

The informal diction of the book also stuck out to me. Freakonomics was written in a fairly conversational way. I enjoyed that a lot because it did not seem like a drag to read the book, it was very relaxed and not a strain to read. 

All things considered, I thought that this was a good book. It was hard to get through because each chapter was fairly long but once I completed it and looked back I liked it. I would recommend this book to people who are interested in learning more about how different aspects of economics work that you would never necessarily look at from the flip side.

SOAPSTone

S The speaker of this book is a third person narrator who you never meet. There are no personal pronouns used and you do not know which author is writing which part of the book.

O The occasion of this book is two curious economists who do not look at the world the same way as everyone else. They wanted to explore “the hidden side of everything” and decided to write a book about their discoveries.

A This book is meant for an audience that is somewhat knowledgable about economics.  They do not have to be studying the topic to understand the book and find it interesting but a little bit of background knowledge about the world around us is helpful.

P The purpose of this book is to prove that deceit is not impenetrable, people can find the truth behind a web of lies if they look closely enough and if they ask the right questions.

S The style of this book is, like in the last book I read (Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs), a systematic approach to introduce the idea to the reader. First, Levitt and Dubner, introduced what they were going to be talking about. And then they stated the facts and after each hard piece of data they talked about why it is significant and explain how they approached their conclusion.

Tone Levitt and Dubner use a very logical tone. They always take a side on the issue but they provide evidence as to why they think that and don’t force you to agree with them. They allow other opinions to be present and don’t totally shut them down.