Entries Tagged 'Reviews' ↓

Fatal Equilibrium by Marshall Jevons (Ballentine Books 1985)

I reviewed Marshall Jevons’ (pseudonym for two economists’) first book, Murder at the Margin, a couple years ago. I sent for the sequel, Fatal Equilibrium, but was sorely disappointed.

Fatal Equilibrium has a few moments of levity, but overall it lacks the delightful explorations of economic theory in response to a murder when Professor Henry Spearman and his wife are vacationing on a remote Caribbean island resort.

On the contrary, Fatal Equilibrium is didactic, cerebral, and as bloodless as the murder of its main character, Dennis Gossen, a quite unlikeable tenure candidate in the Economics Department at Harvard University.

Unfortunately, if you’re a fan of Harvard or Cambridge, Massachusetts you won’t see either place in this book—the only memorable setting for Henry Spearman’s economic thoughts is at the clothing sales melee in the basement of Filene’s Department Store. Continue reading →

Historical class conflicts

The field of economics used to be called political economy. There was a reason for this. At the time the field was first formed the interaction between classes of people was considered a fundamental part of economics, and class conflict was usually a political fight over scarce resources.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, economists, many of them French, began to work out the mechanisms of trade or commerce. These guys came up with notions of “supply and demand,” “labor value,” and “pricing”. The earliest political economists also made attempts to define human nature, with most taking the Christian position that human beings are innately sinful. The main conflict that they focused on in the rising age of global shipping (via the East Indies Company) was that between “buyers” and “sellers”. Continue reading →

A Place for Murder by Emma Lathen (NY: Pocket Books, 1963)

Normally I get books at my local library. Given that I live in a poorer city in the Bay Area, the library doesn’t have money to buy new books. The blessing of no funds is that the library doesn’t throw out the old classics to make room for new books. It has a particularly good collection of classic mystery books. However, I didn’t pick up a copy of A Place for Murder by Emma Lathen at my library.

There is a new business in town. It’s a free “lending library,” open only on weekends. You drop off books you don’t want there and take home books you do want. So how can that be a model for a small business you ask? Its a very simple model. I have to admire the entrepreneur who thought it up.

The owner keeps and sells any valuable old books that are donated. The rest can be taken home by anyone else. These books are placed in no order on the shelves, and the staff are there primarily to sort out donations. So, you must browse this bookstore to find what you want. When you “check out” books from the bookstore the staff stamp “NOT FOR RESALE. THIS IS A FREE BOOK” in the front. That encourages people to bring the books back to the store.

I doubt the proprietor spends much on rent. The free books storefront is in a low rent area, and even in high-rent areas in the Bay Area, such as Solano Avenue in Berkeley, commercial properties now have a 20 percent vacancy rate. The only problem with this idea is that it’s a “brick & mortar” store, not an online store. Eventually the local supply of books people don’t want will dwindle. So I’m getting my mystery books now while it’s still in business. A Place for Murder is the second Lathen book I’ve found there.

The place for murder

Continue reading →