HarperCollins Canada, c2009
At first glance this looks like it should be an engaging narrative
nonfiction book along the lines of something by Michael Lewis or Malcolm
Gladwell. But beyond its catchy title,
the book was a rather dry economics treatise.
That being said, the basic issue of how much things should be worth is
an interesting question.
We place
economic value on goods and services, which are usually out of sync with their
true costs. The author delves into costs
incurred by companies (i.e. the generator of the good or service), and additional
costs that are passed (intentionally or not) to others - usually to the Government
(and taxpayers). These costs include
environmental damages and cleanup, corporate subsidies, and social costs.
There is also a disparity between assigned
economic prices for things artificially considered "valuable," and things that
are critical to life (air, water, shelter, food etc.). How valuable is water? Can you assign it a price? How do you balance the rights of people
around the world to clean water, with the "right" of corporations to extract
water to sell to others?
Discussion Questions
- How easy was this book to follow?
- What is a “market society,” and do you think we live in one?
- Does money buy happiness?
- Is there anything we can do to bring attention to the real cost (ecological cost etc.) of goods? How should these be paid?
- Should society compensate people who contribute to society/the human species, but aren’t a part of the market or labour force as such?
- What in our world should remain in common hands? Food, water, shelter etc?
- What are the problems of assigning a market price to things we value?
- If our society is unsustainable, how and when do you think things will crash? Has this process already started?
- The author kind of danced around this question, but, what is your opinion of private property?
- Is there anything that this book should have discussed, but didn’t?
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