The Price of Everything: A Parable of Possibility and Prosperity

by Russell Roberts and Russel "Russ" Roberts

Book Overview

Stanford University student and Cuban American tennis prodigy Ramon Fernandez is outraged when a nearby mega-store hikes its prices the night of an earthquake. He crosses paths with provost and economics professor Ruth Lieber when he plans a campus protest against the price-gouging retailer--which is also a major donor to the university. Ruth begins a dialogue with Ramon about prices, prosperity, and innovation and their role in our daily lives. Is...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0691135096
• ISBN13: 9780691135090
• Release Date: August 2008
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Length: 203 Pages
• Weight: 0.87 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.8" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Great for Dinner Table Discussions

The idea of building a basic Economics course into an interesting and fun story would seem overwhelming, but Roberts makes it look easy. It proves that the things we take for granted, the invisible threads of our lives, are so hidden from our daily thoughts and actions that when a light is cast on them in the context of life's activities, it seems to reveal a previously secret dimension. For most Americans, unfortunately, it's like being told that the earth revolves around the sun for the very first time. Or that "caring for the poor" often leads down a path that only makes poor people's lives worse. Children are not taught the basics of capitalism in school. This would be a wonderful book to discuss around the dinner table. The kids, especially those near college age, would find this more palatable than a text book, and it may prepare them for the likely anti-capitalism they'll encounter in college (and high school).

Weaving Dreams

With this book, Professor Roberts has firmly established himself as one of the top economic educators of our time (or any before us). Like the late Paul Heyne, Roberts has dedicated a career to advancing basic economic understanding. And like Heyne, he has done it with grace, sincerity and humility. The Price of Everything is an economic page turner (imagine that!) - and a book that you will wish to read more than once. Roberts faces head on the many difficult questions and concerns of people suspicious of economics and commercial society -- corporate greed, price gouging, rapid progress, inequality. In addressing these and other issues, he demonstrates that the major economic question is how to enable individuals to live their lives to the fullest. Sure financial incentives are an important component in the happiness recipe, just as they are an important component in motivating entrepreneurs - but so too are thousands of other motives. These motives vary from person to person, and are wholly unknowable to any one individual - regardless of how intelligent or well intentioned. With The Price of Everything, Professor Roberts has turned the eponymous criticism of economists on its head - weaving it into a badge of honor each of us -- teachers and students -- can wear proudly.

Fascinating Information on

"The Price of Everything" is the first book I've read by Mr. Roberts. It is both (primarily) an introduction to the fascinating concept of emergent order (order that arises by human action but not guided by anything other than the "unseen hand") and (secondarily) a pretty darn moving novel. For the first few pages I was concerned that the story would get in the way of the information, but that's not the case at all: after a bit, I came to care about the characters as much as in any popular fiction. It is, after all, a parable. Russell Roberts also hosts EconTalk ([...]), absorbing, detailed, but vastly entertaining interviews on relevant economics subjects, usually around an hour long; those podcasts (some of which the author points to in the "Further Reading" section of the book) are well worth listening to, especially the one that addresses at a little more detail the economics and positive benefits of price gouging after emergencies, something a resident of the Florida panhandle is sure to be interested in! Remember, a "free market" means no one's forced to buy or sell, it's a mutually beneficial transaction. "The Price of Everything" should be mandatory reading for politicians, but as Mr. Roberts mentions in a podcast regarding the book itself, politicians have their own agenda to pursue and fluency in the market forces driving our economy (sadly) don't fit into those agenda. Very highly recommended as an easy, quick introduction to pricing and free markets.

A Real "Page Turner"

This is the second book by Russell Roberts which I have read. Roberts has a great talent for explaining esoteric economic concepts in simple language, and in an engaging manner. Indeed, this book is a real "page turner"; I could hardly put it down, and completed it in one day. Among other things, the book explains how complex systems, such as biological, cultural, and economic systems, arise spontaneously, without any commander or central planner. This concept, which was the basis of the work of economist F. A. Hayek, is very relevant to the issues of the day. We hear politicians advocate a national energy policy, but Hayek, and Roberts, show that decisions made by government bureaucrats are not likely to lead to the best results. More specifically, Roberts explains how prices work as "signals" in an economy, enabling an economic system to adjust to varying conditions, and providing incentives for entrepreneurs to make the investments necessary to improve the lives of others. The title of the book reflects this concept. The book is filled with quotable, pithy lines. My favorite, and one which I will post on my refrigerator, is from page 38: Prices are the pheromones of the human ant colony we call an economy, the signals that hold the whole thing together, the tendons of the invisible hand." William H. Eilberg

Passionate about teaching--and good at it

The Price of Everything is the story of Ramon Fernandez, a tennis prodigy about to graduate from Stanford and selected to give a commencement speech. At the beginning of the novel, an earthquake rocks the Bay Area and Fernandez and his girlfriend finish their dinner by candlelight and then head to Home Depot for some flashlights. But by the time they get there, they're sold out. So the couple drives out to Hayward, the nearest location of Big Box--which has plenty of stock but which has doubled its prices in the wake of the disaster. Fernandez picks up what he needs but is upset by the plight of a poor woman who didn't bring enough money for baby food and diapers ("How could she have known that Big Box would gouge her with doubled prices?") and ends up rallying a group of people in the parking lot. Fernandez ends up getting a personalized economics seminar from the provost of the university, Ruth Lieber, a woman truly excited about teaching. And she, along with the ensuing events, changes both Fernandez's mind and his life. Much of the novel is a one-on-one discussion about how price signals create a market more efficient than central planning could ever do, and Roberts is good at illustrating this difficult concept. There are many examples of how the same unplanned order arises in the natural world, both explicit and implicit--for example, a flock of birds with a common goal, or dancing couples in a nightclub. But it's not strictly a series of lectures. The story of a born teacher, full of passion about even her very last student, and a young man about to go out into the world, is also fully realized. I wouldn't say this is a novel that should be read just for fun, unless you are as dorky as me and really think this stuff is fun. But if you've ever thought about picking up a book like Freakonomics and aren't so into nonfiction, or if you've read one of the recent pop economics books and want something more basic than the flashy examples often written about, this would be a great place to start.