Cooperation and Coercion
How Busybodies Became Busybullies and What That Means for Economics and Politics
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Narrated by:
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Pat Grimes
About this listen
There are only two ways that humans work together: They cooperate with one another or they coerce one another. And once you realize this fundamental fact, it will change how you see the world.
In this myth-busting book, Antony Davies and James R. Harrigan display their wisdom and talent for explaining complex topics; these skills have attracted a devoted audience to their weekly podcast, Words & Numbers, and made them popular speakers around the country.
By looking for cooperation and coercion in everyday life, they help make sense of a wide range of issues that dominate the public debate. You'll come away from this book with a clear understanding of everything from the minimum wage to taxes, from gun control to government regulations, from the War on Terror to the War on Drugs to the War on Poverty.
It turns out that coercion is necessary...sometimes. Even in a democracy, we all abide by rules, including plenty that we don’t agree with, in the name of getting along.
But in the end, Davies and Harrigan show that cooperation, without question, is the key to human happiness and progress. The more we encourage it, the better off we all are.
©2020 Antony Davies and James R. Harrigan (P)2020 Dreamscape Media, LLCListeners also enjoyed...
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From debt ceiling standoffs to single-digit Congress approval ratings, America’s political system has never been more polarized - or paralyzed - than it is today. As best-selling author and public policy expert Charles Wheelan writes, now is the time for a pragmatic Centrist party that will identify and embrace the best Democratic and Republican ideals, moving us forward on the most urgent issues for our nation.
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Must read for all rational americans
- By CM on 09-15-15
By: Charles Wheelan
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The Socialist Temptation
- By: Iain Murray
- Narrated by: James Langton
- Length: 6 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Just 30 years ago, socialism seemed utterly discredited. An economic, moral, and political failure, socialism had rightly been thrown on the ash heap of history after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Unfortunately, bad ideas never truly go away — and socialism has come back with a vengeance. A generation of young people who don’t remember the misery that socialism inflicted on Russia and Eastern Europe is embracing it all over again.
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Full Of Important Insights
- By Ralph Alderson on 12-17-20
By: Iain Murray
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The Conscience of a Liberal
- By: Paul Krugman
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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America emerged from Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal with strong democratic values and broadly shared prosperity. But for the past 30 years, American politics has been dominated by a conservative movement determined to undermine the New Deal's achievements. Now, the tide may be turning, and in The Conscience of a Liberal Paul Krugman, the world's most widely read economist and one of its most influential political commentators, charts the way to reform.
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Great Book!!!
- By carl801 on 12-04-07
By: Paul Krugman
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For a New Liberty
- The Libertarian Manifesto
- By: Murray N. Rothbard
- Narrated by: Jeff Riggenbach
- Length: 15 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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In For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto, Rothbard proposes a once-and-for-all escape from the two major political parties, the ideologies they embrace, and their central plans for using state power against people. Libertarianism is Rothbard's radical alternative that says state power is unworkable and immoral, and ought to be curbed and finally overthrown.
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I'm a Ron Paul Libertarian but this is a good
- By monte reed on 03-20-12
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Beyond Outrage
- What Has Gone Wrong with Our Economy and Our Democracy, and How to Fix Them
- By: Robert B. Reich
- Narrated by: Robert B. Reich
- Length: 3 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Robert B. Reich urges Americans to get beyond mere outrage about the nation’s increasingly concentrated wealth and corrupt politics in order to mobilize and to take back our economy and democracy. Americans can’t rely only on getting good people elected, Reich argues, because nothing positive happens in Washington unless good people outside Washington are organized to help make those things happen after the election. But in order to be effectively mobilized, we need to see the big picture.
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Falls short
- By J. Klinghoffer on 11-04-13
By: Robert B. Reich
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Aftershock
- The Next Economy and America’s Future
- By: Robert B. Reich
- Narrated by: Robert Reich
- Length: 4 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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The author of 12 acclaimed books, Robert B. Reich is a Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and has served in three national administrations. While many blamed Wall Street for the financial meltdown, Aftershock points a finger at a national economy in which wealth is increasingly concentrated at the top - and where a grasping middle class simply does not have the resources to remain viable.
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Very plausible assessment of our economy
- By CAR TOP CAMPER on 10-06-10
By: Robert B. Reich
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Debunk This!
- Shattering Liberal Lies
- By: Matt Palumbo
- Narrated by: Josh Goodman
- Length: 5 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Countless studies have proven that over 90 percent of Trump-related news coverage is negative, and the percentage of journalists that identify as Republicans are in the single digits. When liberals are running the show, you can bet that their narrative has gone unchallenged. If you tell a lie long enough, people will begin to believe it, and that’s certainly the case with so many liberal myths that have become accepted as conventional wisdom.
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you still need to read it
- By David Markland on 10-16-19
By: Matt Palumbo
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Radical Markets
- Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Society
- By: Eric A. Posner, E. Glen Weyl
- Narrated by: James Conlan
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Many blame today's economic inequality, stagnation, and political instability on the free market. The solution is to rein in the market, right? Radical Markets turns this thinking - and pretty much all conventional thinking about markets, both for and against - on its head. The book reveals bold new ways to organize markets for the good of everyone.
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Terrible Reader ruins this book
- By Brian W. Veit on 10-30-18
By: Eric A. Posner, and others
What listeners say about Cooperation and Coercion
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- aemora
- 11-18-22
A comprehensive and excellent explanation of the current climate
Davies and Harrigan provide reasoned and easily understandable explanations of today’s political and social climate.
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- Amazon Customer
- 11-18-20
Great book!
Nice dive into the perils of asking government to do everything for us, versus figuring out how to do things together.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Charlie
- 02-22-21
Economics is about Human incentives.
This is a book explains that economics is about human behavior. Human behavior is directed by incentives either artificially created by the government or naturally created by cooperating with each other in the marketplace. It explains that an artificially created incentive often results in unintended consequences. The reason is that incentives that are created by the government come from people who have limited and/or flawed knowledge. Ultimately these incentives or disincentives come at the point of a gun from the government. Government action is always coercive.
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2 people found this helpful
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- George Walker
- 02-27-22
Everyone needs to read this book
I highly recommend this book it needs to be read, listened, and understood. Share with everyone.
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- Karthik Boyareddygari
- 02-16-23
Sober and Thought Provoking Binary Classification
As a regular Words & Numbers listener, I was not disappointed in the least! While both Antony and James are excellent at appealing to the facts and figures to make their arguments, it would have been nice for there to have been a bit more of the indignation that James can pull off so well. It's no surprise then that chapter 9 on "Busybullies" was my favorite. Not only could you pick up on a certain level of disdain when reading that chapter, but was the one place where there was a discussion of the the kinds of people drawn to government whereas the rest of the book focused on how people adapted to various forms of coercion.
This appeals to those who are more libertarian in temperament while also not being completely satisfying to those who are anarchists, but I won't dock the book for not going into something that it wasn't meant to address. One topic that I really would've appreciated hearing their perspective on is schooling since the requirement to have a K-12 education is a form of coercion — especially since both authors are heavily involved with education broadly speaking.
Don't get me wrong, I still found this to be a very compelling read, and it's clearly a good recommendation for the uninitiated to get them thinking and perhaps more motivated to continue reading further going forwards. And honestly, this somewhat reminded me of Thomas Sowell's "A Conflict of Visions" since they both introduce a binary classification, explain it with some basic principles, and then illustrate how it manifests in a variety of facets of real life. Not only is the approach reminiscent of Sowell's work, but also the quality. Those familiar with Sowell's work will understand how strong an endorsement that is.
I really hope that we can see more publications out of this duo in the future!
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- Steve Burgess
- 09-10-20
Should be Required Reading
If everyone in the USA understood the concepts in this book, we could spend a LOT less time arguing.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Sarah
- 11-07-24
The most underrated economic and political science book of our time.
Davies and Harrigan have created a book that should be required reading for highschoolers or college. Simply a great book.
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- Jacob
- 03-27-21
Clear, Concise, and Informative
In addition to being virtually free of political bias, this book offers a tremendous amount of verifiable statistics and easy-to-understand examples of the benefits and downfalls of different balances of cooperative and coercive societies.
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3 people found this helpful
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- B. List
- 02-01-21
Rounds out the podcast
The arguments and topics will largely be familiar to the podcast listeners. I enjoyed this book; there were a few topics and statistics in here that were not in the podcast.
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1 person found this helpful
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- D.Kline
- 12-09-22
So good, I read it twice
I have been a listener of Words and Numbers for several years and this is just the next step for me. Highly recommended.
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