Reflecting on Freakonomics

The non-fiction book Freakonomics, by the author’s Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt is about breaking down conventional wisdom from an economics point of view. The author’s accomplish this goal by using real world scenarios, historical examples, and interesting interviews so convincingly that the reader could not argue with their conclusions. I believe the purpose of the book is to teach people that we should be more critical of the information we receive and also to consider that conventional wisdom is often incorrect (at times a direct result of bias and stereotypes created by journalists and statisticians working together to create interesting news stories).

The chapter that sparked the most interesting discussion in our book groups was called “Why Do Drug Dealers live with their Moms”. This chapter included lots of detail about the infamous Gangster Disciple gang of Chicago, IL. The authors broke down the stereotype, or conventional wisdom, that drug dealers make a lot of money. We learned that this could not be further from the truth, in fact, most drug dealers make less than minimum wage. It was interesting to learn that the GD gang structure and hierarchy is similar to a fortune 500 company, like McDonalds. After discussing this chapter in small groups we opened up a large class discussion and we all got that opportunity to volunteer our opinion on the chapter. Some people disagreed with the authors’ conclusion that drug dealers still live at home because they don’t make a livable wage. I enjoyed this particular week because the conversation was so rich and thoughtful.

I thought that this book was written like a text book. It included lots of detail, lots of facts and statistics, history, etc. I have already recommended this book to my mom and a few friends because I really enjoyed reading the book and it made me think about what I consider “conventional wisdom” and challenging the information I receive lately. There were words on almost every page that I did not know the meaning to; I suggested that my friends keep a dictionary handy while reading.