Book Review: Freedomnomics: Why the Free Market Works and other Half-Baked Theories Don't by John Lott
As the title suggests, this book is, in part, a response to Freakonomics
It's not just a response to that work, as it deals with a great number of other issues:
- How granting women suffrage led to larger government
- The anti-Catholic roots of public education
- How the secret ballot reduces voter turnout
- Campaign finance reform as a pro-incumbent policy
- How women become more conservative as they get married and have children (and more liberal upon divorce)
- How abortion increased crime in the 1990s (contrary to the claim in Freakonomics)
- How governmental agencies are much more likely to engage in predatory pricing and other monopolistic practices than are private firms
- Why campaign donations don't influence how a politician votes
- How the free market increases personal and corporate honesty
- Statistical evidence for media bias
It's definitely worth reading as it will shatter a great number of commonly held beliefs about they way things are and why they are that way. You'll learn a lot.