Harford VS. Friedman

The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World by Tim Harford ($25, Random House, 2008).

Even if you found Thomas L. Friedman's The World Is Flat a smidge, um, one-dimensional, there's something to be said for keeping it simple. The precocious columnist's only alternative is to take a bunch of neat conclusions and to try to make a larger point out of them.

That's what the Financial Times' Tim Harford has done with The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World. Harford, a former World Bank economist (who has contributed to Forbes), is much savvier about his beat than Friedman, and he knows it, too: one of the later chapters of the book is titled "The World Is Spiky."

Harford excels at making economists' studies palatable for discerning but non-expert readers. The book uses hard data to show, inter alia, why promiscuous teens are actually health-conscious, divorce hasn't gotten a fair shake, corporate bosses will always be overpaid and job prospects for minorities continue to be grim.

Harford also devotes a few pages to one-upping Friedman. Harford's riff is that the ease in transporting goods fuels the growth of cities, not the countryside, leading in part to taxation and gender-balance disparities between rural and urban areas.

Advantage, Harford. But if Harford was so hot on responding to Friedman's book, he should have done so with one of his own, rather than just scoring a few hits on such a large target. The problem with fighting Friedman's book with another is that it would be unbelievably geeky--even for an economics columnist--fun as a "Harford contra Friedman" might be.

"The World Is Spiky" is one of a succession of far-flung musings loosely tied together by frequent alerts on what's happened in previous chapters and what will be discussed in those to come. Most of the individual topics could, on their own, support a full book; especially insightful is the revelation that racism in the workplace persists because employers have subconsciously deduced it's more efficient to hire certain ethnicities over others. But none of the discourses in The Logic of Life is fully fleshed out before the reader is hit with the next one in line.

In addition, Harford, otherwise a strong writer, has an affinity for inserting into the narrative his own experiences--even though they seem to be limited to kaffeeklatsches with peers.

The Logic of Life feels at once small-time and overly broad. Harford has a real passion for the countless studies he describes in the book. Why not take some time to set one up himself, or at least participate in one being done by a colleague?

There's no reason an otherwise arms-length columnist can't get his hands dirty as an author.

from Forbes.com