While reading Freakonomics, I came upon a section, that was quite interesting. It described the story of a man named Paul Feldman. He was previously a weapons cost analyzer for the Navy, but he quit his job to sell bagels. However, his bagel business was not run like a normal bagel business. He would go around to corporate buildings and leave a box of bagels with a collection box, and leave. At the end of the day he would return and pick up the leftover bagels along with the money. Many people considered this honor based system of economics would never work, but not only did it succeed, but it surpassed what he was making; working for the Navy. The interesting part of this enterprise was that Paul did not need a 100% or even a 90% return to make money, all he needed was an 87% return. This defied all common assumptions about economics. There were no incentives or disincentives to steal from Paul besides one's own morals, but here he was, getting an 87% return on his bagels. What this proved was that a person's sense of morality can have a profound affect on an economic outcome.
This section spoke to me because I have regularly witnessed these stores based on an honor system, and I have always been surprised that these businesses stayed up and running. One specific example was when I was at a farm stand in Deerfield. They were selling much more valuable commodities than a bagel, and there was nothing there except a collection box. At the time, I could not believe that a business like this was still in business because I had such a low opinion of humanity that I couldn't believe that such a enterprise could survive the corruption of society. I asked my mom why didn't people just steal and she said that "it would be wrong." While I was there, no one stole anything (probably because there were other people there) and today I still see it in business. Both the story in the book and my experience reinforce the idea that morality can coexist with modern economics. The common assumption about morality, was that it was a nice feeling, but it would never work in such a cut throat society. Of course, there are professions out there that are run by back-stabbing barons who only work for the guy they see in the mirror every morning, but this is not the only type of business. People can make money off of people's morality, which is an exciting discovery for the future of our race.
Thursday, May 29, 2014
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Freakotemplates
In almost all non-fiction books, the authors will use a set of templates to convey their message. These templates can be used for many different purposes including introducing a quote, or presenting a counter-claim; Freakonomics is no different. Although the subject matter is quite unique, the strategies used discuss this subject can be found in many other books.
The type of template Freakonomics uses most extensively is the placing of a naysayer in the argument. The controversial claims made by the authors in this book would inevitably create opponents, and the authors take great pains to address these claims. One example comes at the end of a chapter addressing the existence or morals in economics. The author claims, rather controversially, that an economic system can be based on people's morals, and can thrive on human conscience. He then states "This outcome (success of an honor system based bagel business) may surprise some people---including Feldman's economist friends." This quote uses a template to explain why this study is so important to our understanding of society. Unless the author explains to the people why this finding is such game-changing discovery. Otherwise, this would have been pushed aside as just a somewhat interesting story, and not a statement about modern economics.
The author rarely points out specific naysayers, but brings them up in the form of physical questions. When discussing the hierarchy of gangs in Chicago and the distribution of wealth among the members, the author creates a naysayer by asking "Who cared if the crack game was a tournament that only a few of them could win" This naysayer allows the author to address a possible point of contention within the context of the argument. Here, there is specific person or group of people who he addresses, but it comes in the form of a hypothetical question. He could have easily stated "Some may say that there is no significance to the crack tournament, but I disagree" the former just flowed better in his argument.
Although Freakonomics discusses many different issues, their way of discussing them remains relatively constant. There is very little use of direct quote sandwiches, but the use of naysayers is quote prevalent in the book, most likely because of the provocative claims made throughout the book. Naysayers are required to tell the reader that the author understands the reservations people may have about the claims, and with claims that not only break the mold, but ignore the mold all together, a naysayer is vital to bring the book back down to a place where people can understand it.
The type of template Freakonomics uses most extensively is the placing of a naysayer in the argument. The controversial claims made by the authors in this book would inevitably create opponents, and the authors take great pains to address these claims. One example comes at the end of a chapter addressing the existence or morals in economics. The author claims, rather controversially, that an economic system can be based on people's morals, and can thrive on human conscience. He then states "This outcome (success of an honor system based bagel business) may surprise some people---including Feldman's economist friends." This quote uses a template to explain why this study is so important to our understanding of society. Unless the author explains to the people why this finding is such game-changing discovery. Otherwise, this would have been pushed aside as just a somewhat interesting story, and not a statement about modern economics.
The author rarely points out specific naysayers, but brings them up in the form of physical questions. When discussing the hierarchy of gangs in Chicago and the distribution of wealth among the members, the author creates a naysayer by asking "Who cared if the crack game was a tournament that only a few of them could win" This naysayer allows the author to address a possible point of contention within the context of the argument. Here, there is specific person or group of people who he addresses, but it comes in the form of a hypothetical question. He could have easily stated "Some may say that there is no significance to the crack tournament, but I disagree" the former just flowed better in his argument.
Although Freakonomics discusses many different issues, their way of discussing them remains relatively constant. There is very little use of direct quote sandwiches, but the use of naysayers is quote prevalent in the book, most likely because of the provocative claims made throughout the book. Naysayers are required to tell the reader that the author understands the reservations people may have about the claims, and with claims that not only break the mold, but ignore the mold all together, a naysayer is vital to bring the book back down to a place where people can understand it.
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Rhetoric in Freakomics.
The book Freaknomics was written on the basis that statistics can change accepted assumptions. People can believe that real estate agents work for the seller only or that sumo wrestling is without corruption, but by merely examining the data related to these issues, it becomes clear that these assumptions are not always the case. In order to prove these assumptions incorrect, data must be supplied, and lots of it. Because data is used so extensively throughout the book, it comes as no surprise that logos is the primary rhetorical device. It is somewhat difficult to convince a person that a beloved sport like sumo wrestling is wrought with corruption without giving hard data, although emotions could arise as a by-product of making these controversial claims. By citing all the data, the author's build their ethos with the reader and further convinces them of their claims. Honestly, if a person looked at the amount of data they do their head would explode. The amount of data combined with their conclusions from this data combine to create such a conclusive and airtight argument, that it becomes very difficult to refute the claims. The following passage is an example of how they use both logos and ethos create an argument.
"If morality represents the way we would like the world to work and economics represents how it actually does work, then the story of Feldman's bagel business lies at the very intersection of morality and economics. Yes, a lot of people steal from him, but the vast majority even though no one is watching over them, do not. This outcome may surprise some people--including Feldman's economist friends, who counseled him twenty years ago that this honor system scheme would never work. But it would not have surprised Adam Smith. In fact, the theme of Smith's first book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments was the innate honesty of mankind. 'How selfish soever man may be supposed,' Smith wrote 'there are evidently some principles in his nature,which interests him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it.'"
In this paragraph, the author draws a parallel between economics and morality through the use of mainly logos and ethos. The first part of the paragraph represents a heavy use of logos. The use of "if this is true...then this is also true" is a classic example of logos. The second part of the paragraph takes a much more ethical approach. First, the author puts a naysayer; giving a voice to the other side of the issue. What makes this a powerful point of ethos is that this naysayer or rather these naysayers are real people who have a personal relation to the person cited. Next the use of a quote is a very effective use of ethos, and quoting the world famous economist Adam Smith takes the argument to another level. By quoting the man whom people assume would disagree with the statement and having his quote agree with their argument, makes a persuasive argument.
"If morality represents the way we would like the world to work and economics represents how it actually does work, then the story of Feldman's bagel business lies at the very intersection of morality and economics. Yes, a lot of people steal from him, but the vast majority even though no one is watching over them, do not. This outcome may surprise some people--including Feldman's economist friends, who counseled him twenty years ago that this honor system scheme would never work. But it would not have surprised Adam Smith. In fact, the theme of Smith's first book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments was the innate honesty of mankind. 'How selfish soever man may be supposed,' Smith wrote 'there are evidently some principles in his nature,which interests him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it.'"
In this paragraph, the author draws a parallel between economics and morality through the use of mainly logos and ethos. The first part of the paragraph represents a heavy use of logos. The use of "if this is true...then this is also true" is a classic example of logos. The second part of the paragraph takes a much more ethical approach. First, the author puts a naysayer; giving a voice to the other side of the issue. What makes this a powerful point of ethos is that this naysayer or rather these naysayers are real people who have a personal relation to the person cited. Next the use of a quote is a very effective use of ethos, and quoting the world famous economist Adam Smith takes the argument to another level. By quoting the man whom people assume would disagree with the statement and having his quote agree with their argument, makes a persuasive argument.
Monday, May 19, 2014
The First Fifty Pages
The book opens by describing the unprecedented drop of crime in the mid 1990s. Leading up to 1996, people were predicting a huge rise in the rate of crime that 1995 would look like "the good old days" according to experts, the absolute best case scenario we could hope or was a 15% increase in crime. However, when 1996 rolled around, crime began to drop, not just slightly, but rapidly. Experts came up with many explanations for this phenomena including a tough on crime approach, and better police tactics. The author claims that while these were important, they were not the overarching catalyst for this drop. According to him, the real reason for this drop in crime was the landmark decision of Roe v. Wade twenty years prior. This decision, according to the author, ceased many children who would most likely be born into more destitute situations from being born. This anecdote was meant to introduce the reader to the stream of thought that inspired this book. By looking at data, we can discover trends in our society that were previously un-explainable. Questions like how do we discover cheating, or what incentivizes a real estate agent can be answered by merely looking at the data.
The first chapter of the book looks at morales and cheating. The first story looks at a day care in Israel that was dealing with the problem of waiting for late parents. To alleviate this problem the managers of the day care instituted a three dollar fine if a parent was more than ten minutes late. Surprisingly, the amount of late pickups actually increased. To parents, the fact that they only had to pay three dollars to expunge the guilt of showing up late, made them feel that it was not a big problem and could show up late. This story was meant to show that a conventional belief I.E. a fine will cause a behavior to stop, is not always the case, and can be inherently flawed. Then, the author writes about reaches the meat of the chapter, which is cheating. The first example the author uses, is the problem of cheating on standardized tests. The focus was primarily directed at a public elementary school in Chicago where students in sixth grade were receiving higher scores in sixth grade than any other grade. These jumps in test scores caught the attention of Arne Duncan who retested the trouble spots, and found the classrooms with cheating teachers and promptly fired them. The author then draws a parallel between this situation and the one in Japan where it is believed that sumo wrestlers were throwing matches to help their fellow wrestlers. This time, they looked at the percentage of victories that a wrestler's status was in the balance, and the findings showed that the wrestler on the bubble won a disproportionate amount of times compared to their record compared to their competition's. Despite this clear data, there has been little action dealing with these claims of throwing matches. The final example looks at the sale of bagels. A man who had begun selling bagels at his job at one point quit his job and went around selling bagels to companies all around. What he found was he percentage of people took a bagel without paying, (he just dropped off the bagels and a payment box and left) was correlated to many different factors including weather, size of company, and time of the year. A person's sense of morality can be directly affected by outside forces.
Overall, this book has been blowing my mind. The part that was especially interesting was the section about the day care center. The book takes instances that we would not pay attention to, and strips away the assumptions and gives us the cold hard facts. Although, the one problem I find with the book, is with its focussing on the bigger picture, it takes away from an individual's perspective. I personally would have found it interesting for the author's to focus on why one individual makes a decision, and use the data to explain this decision, but this is just nit-picking. I would recommend this book to everyone interested in the workings of their society.
The first chapter of the book looks at morales and cheating. The first story looks at a day care in Israel that was dealing with the problem of waiting for late parents. To alleviate this problem the managers of the day care instituted a three dollar fine if a parent was more than ten minutes late. Surprisingly, the amount of late pickups actually increased. To parents, the fact that they only had to pay three dollars to expunge the guilt of showing up late, made them feel that it was not a big problem and could show up late. This story was meant to show that a conventional belief I.E. a fine will cause a behavior to stop, is not always the case, and can be inherently flawed. Then, the author writes about reaches the meat of the chapter, which is cheating. The first example the author uses, is the problem of cheating on standardized tests. The focus was primarily directed at a public elementary school in Chicago where students in sixth grade were receiving higher scores in sixth grade than any other grade. These jumps in test scores caught the attention of Arne Duncan who retested the trouble spots, and found the classrooms with cheating teachers and promptly fired them. The author then draws a parallel between this situation and the one in Japan where it is believed that sumo wrestlers were throwing matches to help their fellow wrestlers. This time, they looked at the percentage of victories that a wrestler's status was in the balance, and the findings showed that the wrestler on the bubble won a disproportionate amount of times compared to their record compared to their competition's. Despite this clear data, there has been little action dealing with these claims of throwing matches. The final example looks at the sale of bagels. A man who had begun selling bagels at his job at one point quit his job and went around selling bagels to companies all around. What he found was he percentage of people took a bagel without paying, (he just dropped off the bagels and a payment box and left) was correlated to many different factors including weather, size of company, and time of the year. A person's sense of morality can be directly affected by outside forces.
Overall, this book has been blowing my mind. The part that was especially interesting was the section about the day care center. The book takes instances that we would not pay attention to, and strips away the assumptions and gives us the cold hard facts. Although, the one problem I find with the book, is with its focussing on the bigger picture, it takes away from an individual's perspective. I personally would have found it interesting for the author's to focus on why one individual makes a decision, and use the data to explain this decision, but this is just nit-picking. I would recommend this book to everyone interested in the workings of their society.
Thursday, May 15, 2014
Why Freakonimics?
Going into this assignment, I was confident in the style of book I wanted to read. I was at the time reading two other books The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas, and Blood Red Sunset by Ma Bo, and I wanted a book that deviated from the historical aspect and went more into the theoretical realm. My interest was at first piqued by the autobiography of Malcolm X, but I could not find it, and I was not interested enough to pursue it further. So then, I scoured the list of potential books, and came upon Freakonomics. The book that has sold over 4 million copies worldwide took the world by storm, and by 2014, almost every person has at least heard of the book. Written by Steven Levitt, a professor at the University of Chicago, and Stephen Dubner, a less prestigious author this book took the world by storm, and completely flipped upside-down many basic assumptions about our world. I had previously heard about this book, and had watched a part if the documentary that succeeded its success, but I had not read, so I felt it was about time I joined the masses and read this book. After reading only a small section of the book, I can say that it has me hooked. Within the first 24 pages, Levitt, and Dubner, have made attacked many set notions about our world, which made me excited to read on. I hope to fill this blog with interesting thoughts, which have been stated in ten blogs before this one.
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