Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner’s in their book: Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything, portray how economics is an important tool in studying society. What remains common to all the stories is the message that every situation can be dealt with easily if one has the ability to view things in a new way. Random topics related to economics are dealt with in it’s various chapters. Some of them include how cheating is a common factor between sumo wrestlers and teachers, information asymmetry and why drug dealers live their moms. All these topics deal with a common aspect i.e., how economics represents morality. The first three chapters of the book indicate the same.
The first chapter, "What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common?’, discusses incentives. Here Levitt brings up the point of how incentives play an important role to help people get what they want. It’s not just students alone, but also the
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The book identifies a common theme among these various topics. When it comes to analysing the society, the underlying principles remain the same. With the help of different data collections and analysis, it forces the readers to think sensitively as to how people should behave in a society. This is the reason why I found the book to be quite informative and interesting.
The story telling approach is what I found common between both, Freakonomics and The Joy of Economics. Both of these focus on how economics is not only about dealing with money, but it is a phenomena that every individual can relate to in his day to day life. Difference in individual’s behaviour is responsible for different perception of costs and benefits related to economics. This is the highlight of both the books; how economics can help people to make optimum use of the limited resources that have been provided to
Sociology is the study the different aspects of humanity and society. It encompasses a very broad and varying range of topics. It can be studied on a large world-wide scale spanning across several countries, which is called Macrosociology. It can also be studied on a small scale looking at only individual families or neighborhoods, which is called Microsociology. Not only does it peer into humans’ interactions with each other but examines why they act the way they do. It considers the environment, as well as how access to different luxuries can contribute to the people that we become. In this fascinating field there are three primary views on exactly what the fundamental driving force behind society is. Symbolic Interactionalism, the belief that symbols and the meaning that they are given, define how we will perceive life, in this philosophy these meanings are influenced by society and the events of individual lives. Functional Analysis, views society as any other organism, in this theory all parts of the whole must work together cohesively to function. Conflict theory takes a somewhat opposite view than Functionalism, this perspective suggests that rather than wanting to work in unison, society’s underlying motive is a power struggle for resources. Over the course of this paper the reader will explore these different perspectives.
In Freakonomics, incentive emphasizes Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner’s unification of disparate chapters and American society. Economic incentives drive people like teachers and criminals to make certain decisions. “...high-stakes testing has so radically changed the incentives for teachers…” (Levitt, and Dubner 23). School teachers’ incentive is to cheat because they do not want be fired or passed up for promotion because of low test scores. Levitt discovers that the different ranks in gangs have opposite incentives. “A foot soldier’s incentive was to make a name for himself; J. T.’s incentive was, in effect, to keep the foot soldiers from doing so” (Levitt, and Dubner 105-106). Foot soldiers start gang wars in the hopes of becoming noticed
“An incentive is a bullet, a key: an often tiny object with astonishing power to change a situation” (Levitt & Dubner 16). Freakonomics is a book written in 2005 by award winning economist Steven Levitt and former New York Times journalist Stephen Dubner while they both resided in different states. The use of simple diction makes it so a larger audience can be reached; readers vary from everyday people to students to economists. In order to better explain economics, Levitt and Dubner appeal to their audience by forgoing economic jargon and using simpler terms to ensure that the readers understand and relate to what is being explained throughout the passages. The authors also appeal to the readers through their credible background and logically by using statistics, researches, facts and parallelism.
Freakonomics has no one topic. It has many, it challenges you to think more and see there is a reason to why things happen or why people do what they do. Chapter one focus mainly on the study of incentives and how they are pursued. Chapter two focus on information and the way that individuals, organizations, and businesses often exploit their access to crucial information at the expense of
Lastly, they explain the fundamental ideas of the book. Incentives are “means of urging people to do more of a good thing and less of a bad thing.”; according to the authors, they “are the cornerstone of modern life”. Levitt and Dubner also focus the book on the following concepts:
Freakonomics was one of the best novels that I have ever read! I am truly amazed at how Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner compared their study and research to the economy that we live in today. Out of all of the chapters in Freakonomics, Chapter 3: Conventional Wisdom, is the one that stood out the most. This particular topic relates to the world in many different ways.
In sociological theory there are many concepts discussed that are utilized in the analyses of society and culture. Some of the main concepts are Postmodernism, Historical Materialism, Structuralism, Interpretive Sociology and Poststructuralism to name a few. These theories are relevant to the research of understanding certain or specific cultural texts. These concepts provide problems and solutions associated with some of the research approaches fore-mentioned. Analysing the main dimensions will be covered by discussing the appropriate concepts separately and by individually contrasting the classical and modern theories with Quentin
The author Steven Levitt studied economics at Harvard University and MIT. He is primarily known for his work in the field of crime. The title Freakonomics means a study of economics based on the principles of incentives. The title is related to the book since he emphasizes how incentives drive and affect people’s actions. Although this book does not have a single theme, the main focus of the book is a new way of interpreting the world using economic tools. He explores incentives, information asymmetry, conventional wisdom, crime and abortion, and parenting throughout the six chapters of the book.
Chapter 1 of Freakonomics focuses on the beauty of incentives. It asks the question “What do teachers and sumo wrestlers have in common?” The answer is that they both
Somebody Nobody was a comical play, I wish it was longer because as you go along it starts to get more in depth. When it got to the end of the play I did not realize it, felt like I wanted to know the afterlife of Loli and Sheena’s friendship. Did Sheena and Joe Don stay together? Did Galaxy (bigger than the stars) get fired?
When I first looked into finding this book I didn’t think much of it as I just thought it was just another type of text book or some sort. I was thinking that this would be some kind of auto biography or something I would not be interested in. In fact after reading this book I was stunned by the different views and aspects of economics that was explain and I would had never thought about them in that sort of way. This book covers a lot about we discussed in class. This book explains different examples of economic concepts that may be used in our daily lives. They
Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel, known to most as Coco Chanel, “Arguably the most influential fashion designer of all time, Coco Chanel revolutionised the way women wore clothes and paved a new way for the fashion brand, capitalising on the changing times she was living in and her status as a fashion icon”(Dunne). Her clothing designs, from the use of jersey to the Chanel suit demonstrate her rebellious to the common norm. Her impact changed the fashion industry completely to something once dominated by tight fitting, near strangulation attire to a looser and comfortable fit suitable for every occasion. Everything in a clothing department store has her fingerprints, look
In conclusion, social themes are what makes us a society and makes us human. Without social themes such as relationships, children, family, heroism, religion, leadership, humanity, hope, and discrimination we cannot say that we are a society. In any society we must have these elements. These elements make a society. As stated in this paper, we as a society interact with one another. Most of all we learn from each other. It is in that learning that we find understanding of society and how individuals operate. Without social themes or social understanding we would not be able to understand ourselves, not to mention society. “Therefore,” social themes are the things that drive us as individuals to live and interact with each other.
Interaction with the society helps human beings to develop their worldview over a subject (Wilmer 28). Without a society, it will be difficult to differentiate a human being from other animals. Therefore, it is right to say that a man is humanized by society. The basic society where a man belongs is known as a family. It is in the family that a man learns the necessary feature of becoming a member of the whole society. As the man continues to live in the social environment, he will get to learn values, moral behaviors and responsibility. An individual’s intellectual characteristics are a clear imprint of their society (Wilmer 102). Therefore, the level of development of a society is determines the level of individual development in that society and vice versa.
God directed all the events by the exercise of his will and aimed at directing all these events to an intelligent end.