《经济政策的连锁后果》：一句“然后呢？”，戳穿所有"善意政策"的谎言丨托马斯·索维尔经济学名作解读

魏知超啥书都读 2026年4月19日

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBOzNoC2f1Y 

为什么全世界租金最难涨的城市，穷人最租不起房？为什么最严厉保护残疾人就业的法律，让残疾人失业率不降反升？ 这期节目，我们来精读托马斯·索维尔的《然后呢？——经济政策的连锁后果》（Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One）（托马斯·索维尔 Thomas Sowell 著）——这是一本让你学会看穿"政治化妆术"的经济学通识读物。

索维尔用一个在哈佛课堂上让他毕生难忘的追问——"然后呢？"——戳穿了无数乍看之下无懈可击的"好政策"。这本书里没有图表、没有公式，只有一连串你绝对没想到的历史案例：从纽约废弃公寓比无家可归者还多的荒诞，到9万人死在器官移植等待名单上的残酷，再到加州"保护开放空间"如何把穷人和少数族裔挤到100英里之外……每一个"第一阶段"的善意，都在后几阶段结出了它的反面。

• 三种"事与愿违"的政策陷阱：价格管制、"保护"变伤害、风险转嫁——搞懂这三种模式，你以后看任何新政策都能提前嗅出火药味
• 为什么"免费"是一种最贵的东西：从尼克松冻结物价到全民免费医保，免费为什么总是以短缺、排队和死亡告终
• FDA不对称激励的致命逻辑：审批错一个人要上国会听证，不审批害死一万人却是一串无名的统计数字——这是现代监管机构最隐秘的杀手
• "然后呢？"这三个字为什么能让政客恨之入骨：政策后果显现的周期，为什么永远赶不上政客的任期
• 从残疾人法案到南非种族隔离：两个看似相反的案例，为什么证明的是同一个经济学铁律——人的行为不跟着意图走，只跟着成本走
时间戳：
00:00 一本让政客最讨厌的书："然后呢？"是什么意思
02:29 索维尔在哈佛被教授问住的那一瞬间
03:09 三种最经典的"第一阶段思维"陷阱
03:21 陷阱一：价格管制——租金管制如何制造"废弃公寓比流浪汉还多"的纽约
08:38 把价格管制到零：器官移植黑名单与9万条人命
11:01 药价管制：为什么欧洲药企都跑去了美国
14:08 陷阱二："保护"变伤害——残疾人法案通过后残疾人就业为什么反而下降
15:44 南非种族隔离的悖论：自由市场如何在暗中瓦解种族歧视
18:01 加州房价的真相："环保"政策如何把穷人和黑人赶出旧金山
23:18 FDA的致命不对称：为什么阿司匹林救命的知识被封杀了十几年
25:33 医疗事故诉讼：保护患者的法律如何让孕妇打28个电话都找不到医生
27:16 陷阱三：风险转嫁——飓风带的房子为什么总在原地重建
29:24 "每个健康的法国人体内都住着一个渴望被诊断的病人"：免费医保的真相
31:21 终极追问：为什么政治本质上就是一个只玩"第一阶段"的游戏
33:37 我反向推演"然后呢"，“惊喜地”收获了计划经济

1. 英文原版 Book Title: Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One (Revised and Enlarged Edition)

Author: Thomas Sowell  2008-12

Summary: Thomas Sowell applies economic principles to major contemporary real-world problems—including housing, medical care, discrimination, and the economic development of nations. Written in plain language rather than technical jargon, the book examines economic policies not just by their immediate effects but by their later, often very different, long-term repercussions. A central theme is the interplay of politics and economics: politicians are typically rewarded for "stage one" thinking that ignores downstream consequences. Drawing examples from around the world, Sowell shows how similar incentives and constraints tend to produce similar outcomes across disparate cultures.

2. 简体中文翻译版  书名： 经济学的思维方式·现实应用篇
  译者： 张莹  出版社： 后浪丨江西人民出版社   2018-12

内容简介： 《房租管制法》为何无法有效限制租金？医疗保险才是造成医疗服务质量下降的罪魁祸首？以男女平等为目的的政策为什么反而加剧了性别歧视？仔细检视现实就不难发现，许多决策的实际效果往往与其初衷背道而驰。在本书中，自由主义经济学大师托马斯·索维尔用经济学的思维架构，综合政治与社会思考，带领读者重新审视住房、医疗、就业、移民、歧视等与个人生活息息相关的社会问题，抽丝剥茧，透视决策失误背后的经济学逻辑，帮助读者摆脱短视思维的桎梏，学会像经济学家一样思考。

22 条评论

平均分

索维尔的这本书正如你所期待的那样。他对所谓的统计政策和流行理念提出了细致入微的见解和批判。关于保险、“普遍移民”以及发展中国家地理局限性的章节尤其引人入胜。对于任何想要寻找严谨的数学论证来支撑经济政策建议的人来说，这本书都是极佳的参考资料。它教会了我超越对经济变化的最初反应进行思考。

jurijfedorov 对另一版本的评价

3.0 好评

这是托马斯·索维尔的作品，所以你知道会是什么样的。高质量的写作、深刻的思想、理性的视角、严谨细致的论证。最重要的是，你可以期待一位当代最伟大的经济哲学家之一的著作。托马斯·索维尔代表了20世纪和21世纪的理性。

这本书延续了索维尔一贯的风格，提出了必要的批判性论点，支持自由，反对自上而下的管理——这种管理往往成本过高，并限制了人们的表达自由。简而言之，自由使我们所有人致富。残暴的领导让我们都变得贫穷。

关于种族问题的章节非常精彩，与他之前的作品相比，读来耳目一新。在这一章中，他论证了国家应对种族主义制度的形成负责，因为如果仅仅让市场决定一切，人们往往会过于追求利润，以至于无法让某种奇怪的情绪真正影响他们。如果一家IT公司开始雇用东亚裔员工，而其他公司都存在种族歧视，不这样做，那么最终就会出现一家公司凭借更便宜、更优秀的员工垄断IT市场的情况。简而言之，除非所有公司都团结一致，否则任何一家公司都可能打破现有的糟糕制度，从而致富。但国家可以建立一个制度，阻止任何公司雇用东亚裔员工，这样一来，所有公司就只能在一个不公平的市场中公平竞争。因此，系统性种族主义很难在自由市场中持续存在。

这本书主要探讨的是“第一阶段”经济学，即计划经济，以及政府自上而下、着眼于短期利益的决策方式。因此，政府会提高税收并控制市场以获取短期利润。而实际上，他们正在摧毁市场。现任领导人根本不关注那些他们现在无法衡量或从中获利的事情。他们会想方设法滥用体制。

缺点

现在，我们来说说不足之处。首先，我听的有声书的朗读者我不喜欢。他用单调的语调大声喊叫。我根本无法集中注意力听这些论点超过五分钟。

其次，索维尔犯了一些自由主义谬误。他用一些轶事来解释全民医保的弊端。书中提到，加拿大公民会去美国使用他们的医疗保健系统，而反过来却不会。但富人难道不应该更有能力去美国吗？加拿大的医疗体系难道不是对穷人更好吗？也就是说，富有的加拿大人会去美国享受昂贵的优质医疗服务，而贫穷的美国人却负担不起去加拿大的费用，即使加拿大的医疗体系可能更便宜——也不一定。我不确定。我并不是说美国的医疗体系不好，只是索维尔的这些简短论证缺乏说服力。他的所有书都是如此。他似乎并没有从自由主义的角度解释医疗保健系统，让我无法认同他的观点，因为我在这里获得的信息太少了。仅仅举一些小例子对我来说毫无意义，因为它们无法进行公平的直接比较。我需要更多的数据，以及反例，而不仅仅是支持他观点的轶事。我确实认为美国的医疗保健系统在某些方面非常出色，但我不确定西欧的医疗保健系统是否像他描述的那样糟糕。事实上，在许多国家，西欧的医疗保健系统运行良好。而且，潜在的破产问题至少目前还没有出现。所以，索维尔在这个问题上可能完全错了。很难说免费医疗保健系统究竟有多大益处，以及它在多大程度上被滥用，从而与私人医疗保健系统形成对比。

之后，索维尔在解释非洲低社会经济地位时，却避而不谈智商问题。这让我直接忽略了这一章。我真的不在乎人们对黑人或非洲的评价，除非他们从智商遗传的角度来展开论述。任何关于水渠、动物之类的东西，都只是些可能影响种族进化轨迹的小事，但你不能用它们来解释当今非洲的现状。这太荒谬了。

总的来说，我发现自己经常走神。这既是因为糟糕的旁白/音质，也是因为他重复的论点。他的所有书都感觉很相似。总是同样的理念、同样的话题、同样的论证。我不得不读很久才能看到一些新内容，而那时我往往已经筋疲力尽，无法真正欣赏他那些精妙的论证了。索维尔写了很多感觉过于雷同的书，这真是令人遗憾。这应该是我读的他的第三本书了，不过我也在YouTube上听过他很多访谈。

我希望每个论点都能有更多事实支撑。然而，他列举了一些很棒的事实，却被大量的论证所包围。如果你想彻底说服我，这样的组合并不合适。在斯特凡·莫利纽克斯彻底疯掉并被YouTube封禁之前，他的访谈和自由主义视频的结构实际上比索维尔的许多论点都要好。不幸的是，索维尔之所以能继续逍遥法外，是因为他提出了一些笼统而模糊的论点，很少像莫利纽克斯那样深入细节。这样任何人都能规避风险。而且，索维尔常常给人一种感觉，他想表达什么，却又没说清楚。当他谈到NBA黑人和白人球员人数上的显著差异时，他没有解释运动基因。又是为了安全起见。当他谈到性别工资差异时，他本应该深入探讨进化心理学，但他也没有。还是为了安全起见。所有这些论点在道德上都很有道理，但证据在哪里呢？索维尔似乎认为他可以用简单的数字事实和深刻的道德论证来说服所有读者。但他却忽略了科学心理学的论证。这确实是一个强有力的论点，因为它证明了只要我们讨论的是大多数自由市场，这些差异就是公平的，并非由任何自上而下的力量造成。如果他敢的话，他还可以更进一步，深入探讨他所暗示的内容。

结论

又一本索维尔的书。到了这个阶段，我期待看到新的论点，但这本书基本上还是老一套，都是我以前读过的自由主义宏观经济学观点。而那些我没读过的内容，我自己也能轻易地逻辑推导出来。所以对我来说，他的所有书都感觉太相似了，这让我觉得这本书并没有提供足够的新信息。也许是我现在更擅长在脑海中构建这些论点了。十年前，这本书可能会让我大开眼界，因为这些道德论证在当时的媒体或社交媒体上并不常见。

我认为这不是他最好的作品。而且我认为许多理性主义者会觉得这本书过于简单，论证也过于笼统，难以称得上伟大。另一方面，如果你是思想界的新手，这本书或许能为你提供巨大的信息冲击。它让我意识到自己老了，脾气也变得古怪了，需要多和年轻人交流，因为我觉得自己已经掌握了哲学的大部分基础知识，现在更想寻找具体的证据，而不是空泛的论证。我不再需要别人来说服我接受自由主义的论点了。如果索维尔或其他任何人想让我接受自由意志主义的观点，他们需要提供更多的数据。

如果你难以理解基本的自由概念，反而支持任何形式的大政府，那么你一定要读读这本书。如果你并非政治立场中间派，那就赶紧拿起这本书读一读吧。你绝对不会后悔。

这本书的副标题应该改成“超越第一步的思考”。内容非常深刻，结构清晰，但略显枯燥。

我们的后代将会回顾往事，不禁疑惑我们是如何拥有像托马斯·索维尔这样杰出的人才，却又如此挥霍他们的智慧。

azure_nebula 对另一版本的评价

3.0

这本书非常值得推荐，因为它涵盖了多个主题，而且内容相当全面。书中涉及了许多人们关心的问题，而且不需要太多经济学方面的基础知识。我最喜欢关于器官移植的那一章。

18ck 的头像

这本书不像学术著作那样枯燥乏味，不像他的一些论战作品那样愤世嫉俗，也不像《魔鬼经济学》那样浮夸，但作为 Audible 上的免费有声书，它相当不错。索维尔在这里只是将他（老派保守主义的）经济学思想应用于一些当前的议题，探讨经济学如何导致出人意料的政策结果或改变历史进程。能够权衡那些看似美好的自由主义政策及其（在他看来）可能产生的意想不到的后果，这一点非常实用。

概念很棒。可惜的是，大多数“第一阶段之后”的例子都没有经过实证分析。书中充斥着“可能导致”、“可能影响”、“或许会造成”之类的限定词。读完之后，我一直在思考如何进一步分析他书中的例子，因为书中的例子似乎有些单薄。所以，也许这反而是这本书的一个优点。

这本书的概念值得一读，但如果你每年只读十本书，我不会把它列入必读书单。

我读过索维尔的其他一些著作，在一些作品中，他很好地阐述了自由意志主义和传统自由主义的思想。这本书的目标与他之前的作品相同，但它的党派色彩却比我读过的其他作品更加浓厚。书中的描述（例如关于健康的那一章）片面得令人发笑。

遗憾的是，这极大地削弱了他的论点，读起来令人痛苦。这本书对这场辩论并无助益。

本书探讨了自由劳动和非自由劳动、医疗保健、住房、移民、歧视以及国家发展等方面的经济学问题。其中一些内容与托马斯·索维尔的其他著作有所重复。索维尔是一位在经济学、社会学和政治学领域见解深刻的思想家和作家，但是，

我觉得他有把五本书的素材写成十本书的倾向。总的来说，这本书不如《基础经济学》那么引人入胜，但它仍然给了我一些思考的空间，并让我对那些通常被过于简单化解释的经济问题有了新的认识。我发现“政治与经济”和“歧视的经济学”这两章最精彩。

索维尔有一种令人耳目一新的倾向，他关注经济政策的实际影响，而不考虑党派，对民主党和共和党的政策都进行了批判，并且更关注实际结果而非预期目标。他还指出，许多被共和党人认为会造成长期经济损害的民主党政策，实际上是在共和党执政时期开始实施的，只是在民主党执政时期得以延续或扩大，例如尼克松的石油价格管制（在福特和卡特时期延续，直到里根时期才取消）和胡佛的干预主义经济政策（在罗斯福的“新政”时期得到扩展）。

显示更多

the_disaster_autist 的头像

the_disaster_autist 对另一版本的评价

5.0

：“应用经济学”作为书名，虽然贴切，但或许与某些人或许多人的预期有所不同。索维尔的这本书与其说是一本关于经济学和经济的书，不如说是探讨如何将经济思维应用于与人类个体和群体行为相关的问题。它强调用实证的视角审视问题，而非依赖直觉或情感。许多人称索维尔的视角为“科学思维”而非“经济思维”，但这只是语义上的偏好。尽管如此，索维尔对问题的阐述和观察总体上相当平衡，但他往往会留下一些悬而未决的问题供读者讨论，而其中一些问题恰恰至关重要，他的缺席显得尤为突兀。然而，这本书提供了丰富的思考素材，无论你的政治立场如何，都值得一读。

这本书有力地证明了，政客、媒体和各种团体提出的绝大多数谬论，只要跳出对单一群体的直接影响来思考，就能轻易驳斥。

这本书完全基于常识，强烈推荐。我期待阅读他更多的作品（他只有大约一千本书）。

我做了很多笔记，但不想全部誊下来。关键要点——永远要超越第一阶段的思考。重要的不仅仅是接下来会发生什么，而是接下来会发生什么，再接下来会发生什么，以此类推。

价格管制之后会出现四种情况：

1) 产品使用量增加

2) 供应减少

3) 质量下降

4) 黑市交易

这本书写得非常好——涵盖了医疗保健、经济、歧视等诸多方面。

篇幅较长，但内容绝对至关重要！

colbybowser 的头像

colbybowser 对另一版本的评价

我不会读完这本书，因为它已经过时近 20 年了，因此书中很多内容都无法准确反映现实生活。优点是，作者对经济学家的思维方式描述得非常出色。缺点是，很明显他带有某种目的，他的思考完全是为了实现自己的目标。对于任何他不赞同的观点，他都缺乏客观的论证。很多时候，我感到非常困惑，因为我能清楚地看到作者要么看不到要么不愿看到的自相矛盾之处。当他开始吹捧美国私人医疗保健体系的优点时，我就放弃了。我对 2003 年的医疗保健状况记忆模糊，但我知道如今美国的医疗保健状况远非如此乐观。

这未必是件坏事，因为在追求经济和/或政治目标的过程中，我们几乎都需要“超越第一阶段的思考”。索维尔很好地处理了这个问题，他通常避免在道德层面上评判什么是“对”什么是“错”，而是专注于解释权衡取舍和连锁反应（即大多数人往往忽略的“第二阶段”效应）。

22 REVIEWS 

AVERAGE

Sowell has exactly what you'd expect. Nuanced perspectives and criticism of supposed statistics policies and ideas in vogue. The sections on insurance, "general immigration", and geographical limitations of developing nations were particularly interesting. It's a great resource for anyone looking for hard math to back up suggestions on economic policy. This book has taught me to think beyond the initial response to economic changes.

jurijfedorov's review against another edition
3.0
Pro
This is Thomas Sowell so you know what to expect. High quality writing, deep intellectual thinking, rational look at everything, calculated and meticulous arguments. And first and foremost you can expect one of the greatest economics philosophers of our time. Thomas Sowell is equal rationality in the 20th and 21st century.

It's the typical Sowell stuff with needed critical arguments pro liberty and anti top-down management that often is too expensive and constricts the freedom to express yourself. Basically, freedom makes us all rich. Brutal leadership makes us all poor.

The race chapter is a great one and feels new and fresh compared to his former books. In that he argues for the state being responsible for creating racist systems as if you just let the market decide most often people would be too profit focused to let some weird emotion rule them all together as one. If one single IT company starts hiring East Asians while all other companies are racist and don't then you end up with one company dominating the IT market with cheaper and better workers. Basically, unless all move as one any one company can just break the bad system and get rich. But the state can create a system where no one can hire those workers so the companies just compete in an unfair market - equally. Systemic racism can therefore not easily sustain itself in a free market.

This book is basically about "stage one" economics meaning planned economy and top-down and short term view on things by the government. So the government will raise taxes and control the market to gain profits now. While in reality they are destroying the market. The current leaders are just not focused on something they can't measure right now or gain something from right now. They will try to abuse the system if they can.

Con

Now, let's get into the bad parts. Firstly the audiobook I had had a narrator I didn't like. He was shouting everything with a monotone voice. I just couldn't concentrate for over 5 minutes listening to these arguments.

Secondly, Sowell makes some libertarian fallacies. Universal healthcare is just explained away as bad with anecdotes. So we read that Canadian citizens travel to USA to use their healthcare system while it doesn't happen the other way around. But wouldn't rich people better afford to travel? Isn't Canada's system better for poorer people? Meaning rich Canadians travel to USA for expensive quality healthcare but poor Americans can't afford to travel to Canada even if their system may be cheaper - or not. I'm not sure. I'm not saying the American system is bad, but Sowell's short arguments are just not convincing. And it's the same in all his books. He just does not seem to explain the healthcare system from a libertarian point of view in a way that can make me agree with him as I don't get enough info here. Just small examples mean nothing to me here because they are not a fair dollar to dollar comparisons. I need many, many more numbers and then counter-examples too. Not just anecdotes pro his points. I do think USA's healthcare system is very impressive in some parts but I'm not sure the Western European system is as bad as he makes it out to be. It does actually work well in many countries. And the potential bankruptcies are at least not here yet. So maybe Sowell is just plain and simply wrong on this. It's hard to say how much a free healthcare system helps vs. how much it is abused counter the private system.

Then later Sowell is explaining away Africa's low SES without going into IQ. This made it a chapter I just ignored. I really don't care what people say about black people or Africa unless they start their argument with the heritability of IQ. Anything about water canals and animals or whatever is just small things that may have changed the evolutionary trajectory of races but you can't really use it to explain all of Africa today. That's just silly.

But overall I just found myself zoning out one too many times. Both because of the bad narrator/sound quality and just his repetitive arguments. All his books feel similar. It's always the same ideas, the same topics, and the same arguments. I had to keep reading for a long time to get to something new here and at that point I was often too tired to fully enjoy the clever argument. Sowell unfortunately wrote a lot of books that feel too similar to each other. I think this is my third one of his but I have also listened to a ton of his interviews on YouTube. I want more facts per argument. Instead he has some great facts surrounded by many pages of argument. Not really a proper mix if you want to fully convince me. Before Stefan Molyneux went batshit crazy and was banned from YouTube his interviews and libertarian videos were actually better structured than many of Sowell's arguments. Unfortunately the way Sowell remains unbanned is to make overarching vague arguments and seldom go into details like Molyneux did. Anyone can be safe that way. And it often feels like Sowell is trying to say something but then doesn't quite say it. When he talks about the fair number differences between blacks and whites in NBA he doesn't explain athletic genes. Again, safe side. When he talks about gender wage differences he ought to go into evolutionary psychology but yet doesn't. Safe side. It's all morally good arguments but then where is the proof itself? Sowell feels like he can convince all readers with simple number facts and deep moral arguments. But he is missing the scientific psychology argument. That's a strong argument too as it proves that the differences are fair and not caused by any top-down force as long as we are talking about most free markets. If he dared he could go an extra step. Into the things he is hinting at.

Conclusion

Yet another Sowell book. At this point I expect new arguments but it's largely more of the same libertarian macroeconomy ideas I've read about before. And what I haven't read about already I just could as easily logically conclude myself. So for me all his books feel too similar which does make me feel like this book is not giving me enough new info. Maybe I'm just much better at structuring all these arguments in my head today. 10 years ago this book would probably have blown my mind as these moral arguments are not easily found in mass media or on social media.

I don't think it's his best book. And I think many rationalists will feel like it's a bit too simple and too loose argument focused to be great. On the other hand if you are new to the thinking community this may be a huge information boost for you. It just tells me that I'm getting old and grumpy and that I need to interact with more young people because I'm kinda feeling like I've learned most of the basics in philosophy and am seeking more concrete evidence and fewer loose arguments. I don't need to be sold on the freedom argument anymore. And if Sowell or anyone else wants to sell me on the libertarian argument they need to have much more data.

If you have a hard time understanding basic freedom and instead support a big state in any way you need to read this book. If you are not in the center politically grab this book and read it. You won't regret it.

The subtitle of this book should have read “Thinking Beyond Step One”. Very thoughtful, and well laid out, but just a little dry.

Our posterity will look back and wonder how did we get such superior people as a Thomas Sowell and manage to fritter away their wisdom so completely.
azure_nebula's review against another edition
3.0
A great one to recommend as it covers multiple topics in a pretty general way. Many issues people care about are covered and not a ton of previous economic knowledge necessary. The organ transplant chapter was my favorite.
18ck's profile picture

Not as dry as an academic text, not as curmudgeonly as some of his polemic stuff, and not as flashy as freakonomics, but pretty good for being free on audible. Here, Sowell is just applying his (old-school conservative) economic ideas to some current issues, seeing how economics can cause surprising policy outcomes or alter the course of history. It's quite good to be able to weigh nice, Liberal policies against what (in his opinion) their unintended consequences will be.

Great concept. Unfortunately, most of the beyond stage one examples weren't analyzed empirically. Lots of 'may cause', 'could impact', 'might effect', qualifiers. I walked away thinking about how you could further analyze his examples because they seemed a little thin in the book. So maybe that's a success for the book.

Worth reading for the concepts but if you only read 10 books per year I wouldn't put it on the short list.

I've read some of Sowell's other books and in some he does a good job of putting across libertarian and old style liberal ideas. The objective here is the same but it is far more outlandishly partisan than other work I've read. The descriptions (take the health chapter for example) are so one-sided they are laughable.

Sadly this undermines his argument significantly and it makes for agonizing reading. This is not a useful contribution to the debate.

This volume examines the economics of free and unfree labor, medical care, housing, immigration, discrimination, and the development of nations. It repeats a bit of material found in some of Thomas Sowell’s other books. Sowell is an insightful thinker and writer on issues of economics, sociology, and politics, but I think he has a tendency to make ten books out of five books worth of material. This was not as interesting a read, overall, as Basic Economics, but it still gave me food for thought and provided perspective on economic issues that are often too facilely explained. I found the chapters on “Politics vs. Economics” and "The Economics of Discrimination" to be most interesting.

Sowell has a refreshing tendency to looks at the effects of economic policies regardless of party, critiquing policies of both Democrats and Republicans, and concerning himself more with actual outcomes than intended goals. He also notes that many of the Democrat policies that Republicans associate with long-term economic damage are actually policies that were begun under Republicans and only continued or expanded under Democrats, such as Nixon’s oil price controls (continued under Ford and Carter and not lifted until Reagan) and Hoover’s interventionist economics (expanded under FDR’s “new deal.”).
Show More
the_disaster_autist's profile picture
the_disaster_autist's review against another edition
5.0
: "Applied Economics" as the title makes sense but perhaps not as some or many anticipated. More than a book about economics and the economy, Sowell's books is about the application of economic thinking to issues and problems in re: human behavior individually and collectively. It's about casting the empirical eye over the intuitive/emotional eye. Many call Sowell's perspective "scientific thinking" rather than "economic thinking", but that's a matter of semantic preference. All that said, Sowell's presentation of issues and observations is generally quite balanced, though he tends to leave more than a few matters up for discussion and not addressed, and some of those matters are genuinely consequential and kind of glaring by their absence. However, there's no shortage of food for thought provided, and it's a worthy read regardless of which way your political vane points.

This book forcefully fulfills its goal of showing that most of the fallacious economic arguments put forth by politicians, the media, and issue groups can be debunked simply by thinking beyond the immediate effects upon a single group.

Straight up common sense - highly recommend all around. I look forward to reading more of his books (he only has about a thousand)

I took a ton of notes, but I don’t feel like transcribing all of them. Key takeaways - always think beyond stage one. It’s not just what will happen next. It’s what happens after that and after that and so forth

Four things happen following a price control:
1) increased use of the product
2) reduced supply
3) quality deterioration
4) black markets

So well done - covering healthcare, economics, discrimination, etc etc
Show Less

too long but definitely fundamental!
colbybowser's profile picture
colbybowser's review against another edition

I’m not going to finish this because it’s nearly 20 years out of date and, therefore, a lot of what is being presented doesn’t show an accurate picture of life. On the plus side, the author does a great job at describing how economists think. On the negative side, it’s pretty clear that he has an agenda and thinks past stage one only for what he wants to happen. He doesn’t present much of a balanced case for anything that he doesn’t approve of. In so many instances, I was getting very confused because I was clearly able to see the contradictions in statements that the author either couldn’t or wouldn’t see. I quit once he started extolling the virtues of America’s private health care system. I don’t remember healthcare in 2003 very clearly, but I do know that the picture of healthcare in America today is not so rosy.

That's not necessarily a bad thing, as we almost all need to "think beyond stage one" in our quest to achieve economic and/or political goals. Sowell treats this problem well, generally avoiding saying what is 'right' versus 'wrong' in a moral sense, but instead focuses on explaining the trade-offs and knock-on effects (the "stage two" effects, which most tend to ignore).