I previously discussed a book that describes the power and beauty of the pricing mechanism on my other blog.
I’m going to bring that discussion to this blog. The discussions will be slightly revised.
The focus is on the radical improvement in the standard of living we have seen over the last 100 years. Why are things so incredibly better now? If we can grapple with that question we have a good shot at sustaining that improvement.
The primary driver is radical improvements in productivity. Some of the underlying factors that allow all of this are:
- freedom
- capitalism
- a rules-based legal system
- property rights
- a functioning democracy
You can see why that will fit well in this blog.
Why discuss this book in this blog?
Understanding how we got to the place we are now is key to understanding how to move forward. There are astoundingly powerful forces that moved our economy from near-subsistence agriculture 150 or 200 years ago to the world’s most productive and rich economy today.
It wasn’t an accident.
It wasn’t just good luck.
There are understandable, repeatable, and destroyable reasons we have the economy we have today.
Understanding how we got here is key to moving forward into an even brighter future.
1 Comment
How the price of eggs show we have seen a twentyfold increase in the standard of living in the last 100 years. – 8 « Freedom is Moral · January 22, 2013, 8:40 am at 8:40 am
[…] book The Price of Everything. I’ve been discussing this book in the last several posts starting here and most recently here and […]