Reviews for Not For Sale

The average rating for Not For Sale based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-10-12 00:00:00 Anthony Anderson Highly recommended. Nancy Holmstrom's critique of the individualist reduction of rationality to self-interest is worth the price of the book. Milt Fisk's article on health care is good but not as good as his book. The basic thrust of this book is that through the defense of things provided as public goods, we can work towards a society based, at least to some extent, on the principle "to each according to need," tho this is not what the editors (all Marxists) say explicitly. In other words, they see defense of public goods as a strategy for social change. Public goods include things like comprehensive health provided through at public expense, defense of the environment, a democratic media, accessible education, a "right to the city", and so on.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-11-20 00:00:00 Stephen Michaels Varoufakis set himself a very difficult task here, and his success is uneven. His goal is to provide an exposition and history of the basic concepts of neoclassical economics, and a criticism of them as well. For the most part, his exposition is excellent, and readers looking for an introductory critical perspective on neoclassical economics would do well to begin here (it is a bit more readable than Steve Keen's Debunking Economics, for example). However, the criticisms he provides, couched at the same level as the introduction, are too frequently "gotcha" jabs that would hardly withstand a serious response from neoclassicals. That's not to say there is nothing valuable here. The discussion and critique of welfare economics, in particular, is quite good. However, when it comes to marginal utility and production functions, Varoufakis' critique is quite shallow. Overall, a good introduction, but if you've already spent some time with critiques of economics, you may want to look elsewhere to broaden your foundation.