The Mind of the Market: Compassionate Apes, Competitive Humans, and Other Tales from Evolutionary...

The Mind of the Market: Compassionate Apes, Competitive Humans, and Other Tales from Evolutionary Economics | Michael Shermer | Enlightening and Entertaining

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The Mind of the Ma...

	The Mind of the Market: Compassionate Apes, Competitive Humans, and Other Tales from Evolutionary Economics Michael Shermer Times Books, 2007 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 26 reviews view larger image
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A splendidly multi-disciplinary book

The Mind of the Market is tour de force. One of its ideas is the similarity between the complexity that develops naturally both in the biological sphere and in the economic sphere, one the result of evolution, the other of Adam Smith's invisible hand. Another strand in this splendidly multidisciplinary book is the role of cognitive illusions and psychological foibles and the role they play in finance and everyday economics. Yet another trope is that Darwinian "survival of the fittest" does not mean the nastiest and most cut-throat survive, but often the eusocial and most reciprocating. These and other great ideas expertly woven together!

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Enlightening and Entertaining

There are already some very good reviews that provide a good idea about what this book is about.

My point in writing this review is to highlight how readable this book was.

The author uses interesting experiments and personal experiences to explain his theories on human behavior and the efficiency of bottom up systems (capitalism) versus top down systems.

Very good read.

Interesting and thought-provoking, with Shermer's trademark -- careful analysis

I liked this book. Michael Shermer argues that ideas from biology, particularly Darwinian evolution, apply to the financial markets. It's an interesting idea.

Shermer makes his living as a self-proclaimed skeptic. And he does have one of the marks of the skeptic -- careful analysis. Shermer rarely takes things at face value. Instead, he challenges ideas that others take for granted. That trademark Shermer approach makes this book interesting and thought-provoking. Few authors do that as well as Shermer.

One example -- the evolution of the QWERTY keyboard. How often do we hear that the QWERTY keyboard shows a pitfall of standards? People moan that the QWERTY keyboard is terribly inefficient. But it became locked in early on as a standard. So we are stuck with it. Right?

No. Shermer looks back at the history of the QWERTY keyboard. Turns out that the QWERTY keyboard is not so bad after all. In fact, it's actually pretty good. There may be a more efficient arrangement of a keyboard. But it is hard to say -- tests show there is not much difference in typing speed between QWERTY and its top competitors.

That's just an example of the way Shermer approaches his topic. He uses the QWERTY example to show that evolution in the product market tends to produce an optimum. According to Shermer, standards like the QWERTY keyboard and a Windows-like operating system become standards for a reason. They survive evolutionary forces because they work, and work well.

In this book, Shermer pulls together ideas from biology, psychology and neuroscience. He then uses them to analyze the modern capitalist economy. That gets him to some interesting conclusions. Thoughtful conclusions that make a lot of sense.

To sum up his conclusions very briefly, Shermer gives a good theoretical grounding in solid science for two powerful ideas: Market forces usually work. Government intervention in the market usually doesn't work.

So libertarians, take heart. Voters may not support you. But it looks like science does.

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, page 5, 6

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