The Choice: A Fable of Free Trade and Protectionism

by Russel "Russ" Roberts and Russell Roberts

Book Overview

Written as a novel, the book makes the complex concepts, issues and terminology of international trade understandable for students. Professors complain that their students cannot grasp the nature of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0130870528
• ISBN13: 9780130870520
• Release Date: May 2000
• Publisher: Prentice Hall
• Length: 116 Pages
• Weight: 1.53 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

How free trade benefits us all

This is the third edition of Roberts' novel about the benefits of free trade, using "It's a Wonderful Life" as his template. David Ricardo "touches down" from heaven to earth (like Clarence), to help convince Ed (George Bailey) that he should not support protectionism. The previous versions focused more on threats that were perceived from Japan and Nafta. Here, Roberts uses India and China as his examples. To me, one of the most appealing things about Roberts' work is his honesty. He doesn't pretend that economic change doesn't hurt, but he also focuses on the benefits in the longer term. He writes in such a pleasant style that economics becomes accessible to people who are "math phobic." His other book, The Invisible Heart, is at least as good as this one.

Superb Book

I'll make this as brief and simple as does Mr. Roberts. This is, without question, a superb book. It is the title to which I refer almost everyone interested in the free trade debate. Thank you, Russell Roberts.

Persuasive Argument for Free Trade

Russell Roberts aims to persuade the intelligent layman that the stuff of wealth is goods and services (not money or jobs) and that the way to create wealth is through specialization and trade, which he calls the "roundabout way to wealth." The book is better than a novel. The author creates a dialogue between the late economist David Ricardo and fictional businessman Ed Johnson. It's easy to imagine that Ricardo represents Roberts as professor and Johnson represents every student who ever raised a challenging question in his class. One can learn a lot about international trade from this dialectic approach. The author uses some numbers and case studies to illustrate what happens when trade is free and when it is not. The "rigor" is there even if the elaborate geometry and mathematics usually found in economics textbooks are not. Like most economists, Roberts makes the case for free trade in terms of efficiency. Ultimately though, his message becomes a moral one and a challenge. "The real choice" declares David Ricardo (Russell Roberts), "is between a dynamic world and a static world---a world of encouraging people to dream and acquire the skills to make those dreams come true and a world of encouraging people to be content with what they have and to dream less." The Choice is about as good in spirit and persuasiveness as Frederic Bastiat's Economic Sophisms.

Buy this book!

Roberts does an excellent job a getting across some very complex international trade concepts in a very enjoyable way. I recommend this book to people at all levels economists, like myself; students of economics; businesspeople; working people; journalists; policymakers; everyone!

Capable of convincing even the most cynical skeptic...

...that free trade benefits EVERYBODY in the long run. If you have doubts about the matter, buy the book. Roberts analyzes every critique of open trade policies and systematically, in thoroughly entertaining fashion, dismantles them. If you're a frustrated free-trader in a sea of protectionists who talk in platitudes, BUY THIS BOOK FOR THEM! It worked for me!