Summary Of Freakonomics Chapter 2

Topic: In 1866, the Ku Klux Klan was founded by many former confederate veterans in retaliation to their current Republican Party’s Reconstruction-era policies aimed at establishing political and economic equality for blacks. The Reconstruction era sparked by President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation clearly defined that the days of white superiority were in dissolution. Through a willful ignorance and an insecurity of what might postlude the civil rights movement, the KKK rose, using terror in pursuit of their white supremacist agenda. Nathan Bedford Forrest, a former Lieutenant general in the Civil war, became the KKK's first Grand Wizard. Now with a steady leader the klan became a persistent political party aimed at dismantling the increasingly

​Freakonomics is a book that explores the many possibilities of why some things are the way they are. Principles of everyday life are examined and explained while Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner search for logic in statistical economics. This book answers the questions: how can things affect what people do, why are things the way they are, and why experts routinely make up statistics. This book highlights the commonalities between schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers as well as the Ku Klux Klan and real-estate agents, the life of drug dealers, criminals, and the art of parenting.

In Chapter 2, the authors discuss the economic term known as "information asymmetry." As the book explains, the term information asymmetry refers to when a person uses his information advantage to gain power to the detriment of others. The discussion of information asymmetry begins with a brief history of the Ku Klux Klan. According to the authors, much of the Klan's power in the 1940s lies in the fact that it maintains so much secrecy in everything it does. After World War II, a man named Stetson Kennedy leads to the Klan's ultimate downfall by exposing many of its secrets. Kennedy infiltrates the Klan by becoming a member of a Klan group in Atlanta, where he learns all of the group's secret rituals, names and handshakes, as well as its hierarchy.

For this review I read Freakonomics written by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. This book was published by William Morrow an Imprint of HarperCollins and is copyrighted 2005. Freakonomics is a unique book where there is no central story. It is not a story where it goes from point a to point b and follows a traditional storyline. This book is broken up into a collection of mini stories where the authors try explore issues and approach them from a non-conventional way of thinking. Some of these issues in the book include comparing Ku Klux Klan members to real estate agents, why drug dealers live with their moms, and linking abortion to criminal rates. The book addresses the issues at hand and uses data they have accrued and in their

There are three distinct historical interpretations of the Klan as an organization. The first historical interpretations argue that the Klan was established as an organization answering to a society in need of help with maintaining social order and law. Historians within this interpretation emphasize the playfulness and theatrical nature of the Klan which is unique to this particular historical perspective. This era of interpretation focuses very little on the violence that the Klan inflicted on Southern society, often completely eliminating its violent accounts from their historical works. The second historical interpretations argue that the Klan was established as a racially motivated political organization. Historians argued that because of the Klan’s origins as a racially motivated organization, the Klan would go on to establish political dominance and control over much of Southern society. The third and final historical interpretation argues that the Ku Klux Klan was established as a result to a struggling plantation system. Within this historical era of interpretation, Michael W. Fitzgerald describes the Klan as a non-violent enforcer that was created to control petty theft and labor riots. The establishment of the Klan as a political organization with race

how the KKK brutally and violently show casted their beliefs, which led to the demise of

Generally, secret or hard-to-find information differentiates a group or institution in charge of it from those without access or knowledge. It attributes to the group an informational advantage which is carried out in terms of intimidation or (implicit) trust. Should the knowledge become public, this information asymmetry is abrogated and the group’s power diminishes. For example, the Ku Klux Klan in the US rose to power thanks to a self-created mythos and inside facts and rituals, but lost most of its appeal and influence once Stetson Kennedy published a large part of their secret information.

Shawn Lay, from “ The Second Invisible Empire and Toward a New Historical Appraisal of the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s”, rejects the view of the KKK as a radical fringe group comprised of marginal men and instead characterizes the KKK of the 1920s as a

David Chalmers has written many books in the political science genre, but Hooded Americanism was the first book that he wrote that was meant to be a reference. Anyone that wants to travel into one of the darkest areas of our nation’s history would enjoy reading this book. Readers that want the facts and truth behind the Klan, and are not satisfied with only seeing the negative image that the media has portrayed of the Klan, should read this book. The book was clearly written for an adult audience. Towards the end of the book, David Chalmers goes into detail when describing various acts of violence that the KKK performed. For example, in chapter forty-five, the author describes floggings of African Americans, and burning of Jewish synagogues. Without these detailed accounts though, the author would have been unsuccessful in his purpose for writing. When reading, it became apparent that Chalmers

The various facts, statistics, anecdotes, and studies used in chapter 2 are as follows: the lynching of blacks from 1890-1969 statistic, the outline of Stetson Kennedy’s efforts to take down the KKK, Drew Pearson’s radio report from November 17, 1948, the price of term life insurance falling in the 1990s, David Hillis’ New York Times article, the Weakest Link voting data, commonly used real-estate terms, the dating site data, and the New York 1989 mayoral race. I found the outline of Stetson Kennedy’s efforts to be the most convincing piece of evidence; The anecdote is a primary example of how powerful information can be, how hoarding it is extremely effective for inducing fear, and how revealing it empowers the public. I found the price term of life insurance falling in the 1990s to be the second most

In the book Freakonomics, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner note “An incentive is a bullet, a lever, a key: an often-tiny object with astonishing power to change a situation” (16). This is to showcase the amount of power an incentive can have over a person or a situation; either good or bad. Humans are found to use incentives when it comes to making daily decisions. Often, people need motives to proceed with their plans. Some tend to make either moral, social, or economic incentive. The moral incentive is about self-respect; keeping in check with what was taught to believe is right and wrong. The social incentive is how the public views the person; wanting to look good in front others. Economic incentive, however, would relate to monetary benefit. While all three incentives can affect people’s decisions, economic

From all the books I read during the past months Freakonomics was the one which I keep thinking about the most even after having finished reading it. There are a lot of writings provoking life changing decisions. For me, Freakonomics is not one of them. However, even if the book's impact on me was rather subtle, it still influences the way I see things and how I take decisions on an everyday basis.

What they were all responding to was the force of Levitt’s underly- ing belief: that the modern world, despite a surfeit of obfuscation, complication, and downright deceit, is not impenetrable, is not un- knowable, and—if the right questions are asked—is even more in- triguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking. - Stephen J. Dubner.

The chapter starts by going into the history of the KKK. At first, the Klan was terminated, but regained their status by the 1920s. They began targeting blacks, Catholics, Jews, immigrants, etc. During this time, a writer named Stetson Kennedy decided to go undercover and join the Klan to end racism. In order to achieve this, he worked his way into their ranks. Once he was in, he learned all about their secret customs and eventually was invited to join the Klan's secret police. By this point, he realized the Klan was a lot less violent than it used to be and realized the best way to take the Klan down was to expose their secret information to everyone. Once the world found out the truth, the Klan membership fell significantly. As you can see,

In Levitt and Dubner’s novel, Freakonomics, they deal with the sensitive subject of abortions in chapter four. During this section, Levitt and Dubner are purposing that the drop of crime is not because of the many popular ideas they address but instead because of abortions becoming legalized. Providing proof to their argument, they list out all the popular ideas that many people believe to be the cause of the drop in crime and then one by one explain why these ideas could not fit into the massive crime drop. After explaining the list of popular ideas, they finally come out and state what their take on the crime drop is and explaining why they believe this explanation instead of the ones listed before (115-145). Levitt and Dubner’s flow of writing and logic are shown very strong in this section and provide an easy and understandable read to the audience. Using this form of writing also creates an easier understanding for when they get to their point and distracts the reader into taking account of what they say instead of how offensive it is.