Genre = Philosophy, Epistemology
Elaborate Description
Sowell imbues every single paragraph with so much information and knowledge with such eloquence making it an extremely rare gift. 'Knowledge and Decisions' discuss the how knowledge is used in making decisions. In discussion of incentives and constrains, gathering knowledge is a cost which places a constraint on those who can bare it. Those who have obtained that knowledge, have an incentive to make it more relevant as that means they earn more money, power, or prestige. In making decisions it matters from where the knowledge gathered to make that decision possible. Local knowledge tends to be sporadic, increasing its costs but have substantial benefits of proper usage of any decision to be made. Centralized decision making without use of local knowledge usually creates only disaster. Feedback was a central theme of the book, as those processes that are more complex and specialist are more insulated from feedback necessary to make it more applicable. The reason government does not often make proper policy decision is due to the lack of feedback from those it imposes it values on. This book tackles huge ideas with such ease. Sometimes the book does have trouble expressing an idea but overwhelmingly it presents ideas in an extremely profound way giving specifics and general examples.
Book Details
Pages to read: 399
Publication: 1996
1st Edition: 1980
Format: Paperback
Ratings out of 5:
Readability 5
Content 5
Overall 5
