Anybody read this book?
I’d be interested in reading some austrian commentary on it…(It’s like throwing fresh meat to the lions here but have at it…)
(Main thesis is that markets are not necessarily the best allocators of resources and produce too much waste through the winner-take-all effect. e.g. Too many lawyers vs engineers are the result of too many people thinking they can all make the money that start lawyers make…)
I haven’t read the book but from your characterization the main thesis seems rather silly. If there are too many people going to law school based on mistaken perceptions regarding their future earnings that would seem to be the fault of those people not the free market. There are plenty of information sources to help people research the market for various careers. In any case the only alternative to private property and a free price system would be economic planning. I for one would prefer the freedom to choose my own career (even with the chance I may make a poor choice) rather than have somebody else make the choice for me.
also havent read it, but the following question occurs to me.
in the example of the thesis, which doesnt necessarily seem so bad to me, (cheap lawyers anyone?) who is the winner that is supposedly taking it all?. the engineers? what ?
FWIW, the legal profession is undergoing seismic changes at this point and the end result is going to be that lawyer incomes will reflect supply and demand. The only people making real money in law, generally speaking, are shareholders at the top firms whose clients are large companies with sufficient market share to pass the costs on to their customers and plaintiff personal injury attorneys. There are a lot of externalities in both of those situations.
Also, it’s always problematic to draw conclusions from macro trends. It’s at least as reasonable to conclude that there are more lawyers than engineers in the US because 1) public edumacation don’t teech maf very good and 2) engineering is an uncommon skill set in the North American demographic.
Perhaps there is a distortion with lawyers making more money than engineers, but one conclusion from that bit of data could be that government and its laws have become such a huge part of the costs of production that legal skills are more valuable than engineering skills. So again, it’s government, not the market, that is to blame for this misallocation.
Most importantly, the market is a morally neutral player in the culture. It exists only to unite producers with consumers. If the consumers want lawsuits and lotto tickets, that’s what the market will supply. Really, the more I think about it, the more wrong the book’s thesis strikes me.