George A. Akerlof and Robert J. Shiller assault both mainstream economics and the free market, minimal government ethos in their new book Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Market Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism. Although they provide a sophisticated picture of how various human foibles can cause economic bubbles, crashes, and recessions, they maintain a naïve perspective on the way humans behave in the context of government.

Arnold Kling is an independent scholar who blogs at EconLog.
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