Knowledge and Coordination

Reviews / Votes

The best book on Smithian economics, or for that matter Austrian economics, in many years. * Tyler Cowen, author of Discover Your Inner Economist and Create Your Own Economy * A profound, brilliant book that returns Adam Smith to the centre of the classical liberal worldview. It should provoke a paradigm shift among classical liberals and libertarians. * Sam Bowman, AdamSmith.org * Daniel Klein is one of those original thinkers that stands him out from the crowd of overly-safe players who dominate in academe... His recent thinking, expressed in his new book, Knowledge and Coordination: A Liberal Interpretation, is typical of his, on and beyond the frontier of accepted doctrine. * Gavin Kennedy, author of Adam Smith: A Moral Philosopher and His Political Economy, and Adam Smith's Lost Legacy * Klein seeks to show that the best in economics from Marx and Mill to Hayek and Samuelson is 'Smithian'--that is, humanistic and scientific, historical and analytic, sympathetic and impartial, and above all 'liberal' in the root sense, suited to a free human. He succeeds brilliantly. * Deirdre McCloskey, author of Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce and The Cult of Statistical Significance * Some books explain and defend principles with clear formulations and precise analysis; some books illustrate principles with vivid examples. Knowledge and Coordination does both. It is an engaging narrative exploring Adam Smithian spontaneous order that is enriched by genuine economic analysis, framed by personal history, and punctuated by compelling examples. It somehow manages to combine a plausible reinterpretation of Smith with an integration of Smith's insights into contemporary economic thought, while maintaining the reader's interest with fascinating stories and allusions from numerous sources. Klein has accomplished what some might have thought impossible: He has told a story about economics that is humane, compelling, enlightening--and interesting. There is no other book like it. You may think you know Adam Smith or modern economics, but you have not intellectually lived it until you have read Klein's book. * James R. Otteson, author of Adam Smith's Markeplace of Life *