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The Best Book on the Market: How to Stop Worrying and Love the Free Economy (Hardcover)

by Eamonn Butler (Author)

4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (22 customer reviews)

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Product details

Hardcover: 172 pages
Publisher: Capstone (16 April 2008)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1906465053
ISBN-13: 978-1906465056
Product Dimensions: 18.5 x 12.7 x 2.3 cm

Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (22 customer reviews)

Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 138,056 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
Popular in this category:
#82 in Books > Business, Finance & Law > Economics > Economic Systems

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Product Description

Review

"…Chancellor Geoffrey Howe…has endorsed a new tome by Adam Smith Institute boss Eamonn Butler on the power of free markets." (The Evening Standard, Monday 31st March 2008)

"...well written...full of rather good anecdotes about markets" (Dr Grumble Blog, September 26, 2008)

Review

“The best book on markets ever! Buy this book or sink in the global economy!” TheMarketingHouse.org Monday 30 June 2008

“Eamonn Butler takes the reader on a tour de force around the realities of markets, providing practical guidance”. AdamSmithsLostLegacy.com Monday 2 June 2008

“…a very interesting read and a great introduction for anyone who wants an insight into the market economy.” BBC′s Working Lunch online

“A provocative read.” Total Politics August 2008

“Ideal for general readers, the book uses everyday examples and addresses social issues such as sweatshops and fair trade.”Moneywise June 2008

“Witty and easy to understand, it challenges the mathematic, quasi–scientific way that economics is often taught”InvisibleHand.nl Friday 25 April 2008

“Anything which educates the public and politicians…on how the free economy actually works…is always welcome. Dr. Butler does this in style.” Atlasusa.org Thursday 10 April 2008

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Inside This Book (Learn More)

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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index

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Customer Reviews

22 Reviews

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4.7 out of 5 stars (22 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Definitely the best book on the market that's on the market!, 2 Jun 2008

By	Terence Arthur "Terry Arthur" (UK) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Eamonn Butler, Director of the Adam Smith Institute, has a wonderful ability to express the fundamentals of economics and exchange in ways that lay readers can understand and enjoy - and empathise. This ability combines with an essential technique - to start at the beginning! The path from a single deal between two consenting people (possibly in different countries) to large-scale free enterprise, is a simple continuum. Requiring only the freedom to associate, at every point participants are free to exchange - or not - and the choice may or may not be made with regard to ancillary matters such as specialist advice and contracts. Thus Dr Butler starts with a visit to a street market in Lanzhou, China, and ends (or nearly ends) in discussing multi-national companies. On the way, he covers most of the important consequences of this freedom; for example specialisation and exchange, (to the point where exchange is the fundamental social relation) money, the informative role of prices, and capital accumulation.

Dr Butler is (among other things) a proper economist. By this I mean he has no time for the Keynesian macro-economics churned out by most universities; markets, and life itself, are never in equilibrium, so why build up a "science" on the assumption that they are? There is no Utopia; it's just that markets and freedom from governments are much nearer to it, adjusting constantly in their quests to do better. As he says, "the free-exchange system [markets] has an uncanny power to steer the right resources to the right place at the right time". "Unorganised order", he calls it. In contrast government is working in a vacuum; its operations are based on whims not price signals, and it torpedoes markets whenever it can (starting with money, where "governments manage to make paper completely worthless by printing pictures of dead presidents on it").

Dr Butler rightly castigates big government as the arch-enemy of markets, censoring them and their miraculous signals at every turn. Yet the failure of government projects is an endemic feature, while their perpetrators sing the "market failure" mantra at every opportunity - nowhere more loudly than on the environment, where as Dr Butler points out, markets don't exist.

He might have added "because they were nationalised". But elaborating on that takes time and space, whilst a major feature of this wonderful little book is that it is, well, little; you can read it in one sitting - although many readers will use it as a handy reference as well.

The book is similarly succinct in addressing government regulation of business. Often deliberately sought as a means of protection from competition, this practice is rife and provides government with a scapegoat when things go wrong. (A thorough nailing of this issue and its true causes is long overdue.)

Dr Butler has touched on scores of other matters which are best dealt with by markets not governments - the benefits of competition, prices as messengers, transaction costs, externalities, (where tax itself remains the supreme externality) patents, licences, entrepreneurs (as opposed to "experts") the crucial role of property, and the essential morality of free markets. (Enforced behaviour has no moral component, of course, and in any case charities are within the free market rather than outside it.)

Definitely the best book on the market that's on the market!

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very lucid piece, 26 Jun 2008

By	Peter Young "Peter" (London, England) - See all my reviews

Very readable without being simplistic. An excellent explanation of complex concepts. I recommend it highly.

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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Preaching to the choir , 14 Jun 2008

By	G. Gavigan - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I really liked this book. It was a succinct and lucid exposition of much with which I agree: the primacy of the market (and the inadequacy of equilibrium as an explanation for anything).

But it was also a bit "so what?" It is unlikely to persuade those that disagree, nor upset those that agree. However someone of his apparent calibre could have explored whether there are limits to markets, whether there is any market based justification for redistribution.

It's well written, it won't disappoint, but it's also fairly unchallenging. Freakonomics was interesting, the Undercover Economist was insightful, this is a rah-rah manifesto.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent overview of the market economy
"The best book on the market" is a very concise overview of how and why markets work, and how they allocate resources and effort in a very complex world. Read more

Published 3 months ago by M. Short

5.0 out of 5 stars A masterpiece of pop-economics
Even if, like me, you dont agree with the core perspective of this author's book I think that having read it you would have to agree that there is no better example of pop... Read more

Published 8 months ago by Lark

1.0 out of 5 stars Are we all loving the free economy now?
Whats sad about the muppets who have reviewed this book, is that most likely, they still believe in it. Read more

Published 13 months ago by Mr. Christopher J. Moorhouse

5.0 out of 5 stars Thoughtful and entertaining
A thoroughly digestible breeze through why markets are so effective, and what tends to hinder them working properly. Read more

Published 16 months ago by J. Rountree

5.0 out of 5 stars A book for everyman
I wish this book had been available when I was younger. Someone should buy a copy for every sixth-former and university student in the country... Read more

Published 16 months ago by John Hayes

5.0 out of 5 stars Short, clear, sweet primer to the miracle of the market
Dr Butler's book is brief, taught and engaging; a vivid, first person narrative that draws you in and whisks you through with brio. Read more

Published 16 months ago by D. R. Walters

5.0 out of 5 stars Ligthweight book but heavyweight message
This is a 'lightweight'book - only 160 pages including the index - but it delivers a heavyweight message about markets. Read more

Published 17 months ago by Dr. G. Kennedy

5.0 out of 5 stars Markets explained for non-economists
This new book is a delight. My son is thinking of studying economics for A Level so I leave it by his desk during the day in the hope he will get a proper feel for the subject... Read more

Published 17 months ago by Non-economist

5.0 out of 5 stars A primer and a basic guide,
The Best Book on the Market sets things out in the simplest terms that even the densest politician can understand. Read more

Published 17 months ago by Andrew Ian Dodge

5.0 out of 5 stars A 'Five Star Must Read'
To those interested in the art of economics but awed by the complexity and sheer size of Adam Smith's work (and the work of many other economists thereafter) the solution is at... Read more

Published 17 months ago by Geovari

› See all 22 customer reviews...

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