In Freakonomics the authors purpose was to bring light to all the things that are not in the media and they achieved it through the analysis of incentives and conventional wisdom. In the book they go in detail about the idea of incentives which drive decision-making in the real world and they analyze conventional wisdom or what is stated in the surface to determine its effectiveness. The authors use rhetorical analysis to support every claim they make and by doing this, they achieve their purpose of determining whether conventional wisdom is right or wrong.
Both authors Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner are honored in their fields and have years of experience as both writers and researchers. Steven D. Levitt graduated from Harvard University in 1989 with a B.A. in Economics and from M.I.T. with a Ph.D in 1994. And worked at the William B. Ogden Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago. Levitt is one of the greatest economists of our time. Stephen J. Dubner is a well-respected author who has written for some of the most esteemed groups in the world. The authors position as a well known economist, journalist, and authors,
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they are experts revealing facts and are highly credible. The book is full of statistics, facts, data tables collected from experiments that prove some pieces of conventional wisdom to be incorrect. One example from the book, “Fear is in fact a major component of the act of parenting.” (Levitt and Dubner 149). According to Levitt parents are often scared of the wrong things. He gives an example that a girl named molly has two friends and she is only allowed to spend time at Imani’s house because she has a swimming pool and is forbidden to go to Amy’s because her parents keep a gun in the house. But data says that around 500 children drown in a swimming pool each year and around 175 children die from guns. The authors uses graphs and charts to explain their claims. One example of logos used by Levitt is when they analyze how real estate agents treat the sale of their client’s house. They estimate the commission on a house sold for $300,000, “So on the sale of your $300,000 house, her personal take of the $18,000 commission is $4500” (Levitt and Dubner 7). Then they calculate what the commission would be if the real estate agent spent an extra week and she could have sold it for $310,000? After commission, that puts an additional $9,400 in your pocket. But the agent’s additional share is around $150” (Levitt and Dubner 7). The authors use the calculations to present their point that real estate agents do not always have the incentive to sell the client's house at the highest price. The authors do not influence any specific emotion, however, Levitt and Dubner discuss the positive effect abortion has had on crime. The authors refer to abortion as a positivity to society. "They were the very women whose children, if born, would have been much more likely than average to become criminals" (Levitt and Dubner 4). Levitt is straightforward and doesn't voice his own opinion about abortion. The discussion of abortion by the authors creates some type of emotion that creates some readers to do more research on abortion or change their viewpoint on abortion. In addition, Levitt also discusses if what parents name their children actually affect their child's life. Levitt writes that “ the data on names suggest that an overwhelming number of parents use a name to signal their own expectations of how successful their children will be” (Levitt and Dubner 207). While certain names might sound successful, it will likely not make a difference in the child’s life. Instead, names are a reflection of the parental lifestyle that the child grows into, which is much more important for success than a name. Levitt and Dubner targeted audience was curious young adults and adults that would like to be more informed about the way the world actually works. Because things are not always as they seem, and conventional wisdom is often full of misinterpretations, which points to the spread of false common knowledge because sometimes we do not look into the motivations or incentives behind a situation to find the truth. The author's neutral tone allows him to sound unbiased which contributes to their credibility and helps them to achieve their purpose of contradicting conventional wisdom. The tone is effective because it relates to the audience. In the book the authors also provide questions that already have an answer that, we believe we know but isn’t true.
They present us new answers, that were obtained by studies. For example, in chapter 3 “ Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live With Their Moms?”, you would think that selling drugs should be a great business. But Sudhir Venkatesh was a student in the University of Chicago that went to Chicago's poorest black neighborhoods for an assignment and ended up living with gang members. He was very intrigued to see how gang member’s organization worked from top to bottom. Venkatesh found out that the reason may drug dealers still live at home is because the organization of a gang is like a franchises only the top leaders are getting the big wage’s and the street dealers are only getting paid like $3.30 an
hour. The book Freakonomics provided very striking and thought-provoking information that can help their audience make some better life decisions. They are able to determine the legality of conventional wisdom by searching below the surface and they support their purpose by citing various examples of conventional wisdom proven false or slightly true.
As time went by, J.T. and Venkatesh met less and less and in the year 1998, most of the Robert Taylor buildings would be demolished. As their encounters were coming to an end, J.T. offers Venkatesh names of gang members in Newark and in New York, to enable Venkatesh to pursue his research elsewhere since his dissertation had long ago been finished which was written on the ways that people living in poverty made a living to get them by day-to-day.
Gang Leader for a Day: A Rouge Sociologist Takes to the Streets by Sudhir Venkatesh is the ideologies rooted in the African American community. The ideal facts cannot be denied here. The idea of being black and poor is not a simple answer of, very bad, somewhat bad, neither, somewhat good or very good. Being black and poor is a lifestyle. Being black and poor is a community. This book will give you understanding how structural racism among blacks is installed throughout history. The system is created to make sure the subject matter, blacks, in this case are subjected to fail. The crack epidemic in a Chicago neighborhood was only the beginning.
Summary In chapter one of Freakonomics, the beginning portion of the chapter discusses information and the connection it shares with the Ku Klux Klan and real-estate agents. The Ku Klux Klan was founded right after the Civil War, in order to persecute and subdue the slaves that were newly freed. The popularity of the Klan increased in the early 20th century, around the time of World War I. In the late 19th century, the Klan had only discriminated, persecuted, and subdued Blacks, but in the 20th century they did these things to Blacks, Jews, and Gypsies.
On the front cover of Freakonomics, the subheading reads, “A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything,” which is the purpose of the book. The economist Steven Levitt and the author Stephen Dubner wrote this book using several rhetorical devices to achieve that purpose. A few of those devices, style, ethos, pathos, and logos, were prominent within the book and helped to convey the message and purpose well.
Written by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Freakonomics is built upon three major philosophies: incentives are the fundamentals of life, experts on a subject use their knowledge as an advantage to serve their own wellbeing, and orthodox wisdom is wrong most of the time. This book goes into detail to explain the mindsets of humans, from school teachers to sumo wrestlers, through statistics. Levitt and Dubner claim that when the data is closely examined it can relate to more concepts than originally hypothesized. The style of this informative piece is very precise yet, at the same time, very concise and to the point. The tone carried throughout the book is informative and knowledgeable. The authors use distinct tactics to get points across
Gang Leader for a Day written by Sudhir Venkatesh consisted of Sudhir himself studying, observing and partaking in a study for his dissertation on the South Side of Chicago with underprivileged African Americans who are gang affiliated. The methodological and ethical issues that were found in his book reflect potential strengths and weaknesses of his qualitative research. Venkatesh brought to light the dangers and awareness of being associated with the Black Kings gang, there were situations that were new to him that he had to adjust himself to and be cautious of for the future. Although there were a few ethical issues presented in his book, there was a greater lesson at large taken from his results.
Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh is an ethnographic study of a Black King Gang in the Robert Taylor community. Venkatesh accidentally stumbles upon the gang lead by J.T. and decided to study him and the gang. J.T. is familiar with sociology because he a taken a sociology class so he allows Venkatesh to shadow and document the gang which includes the way J.T. uses violence to maintain his power. Venkatesh also worked with Ms. Bailey, the community leader. She helps him learn how she solves problems, the impact of her power and affiliation with the gang, and how to extort money out of the community members. In his journey Venkatesh learns from the violence and illegal activity he witnesses that “in the projects it’s more important that
The story, Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh, is a ethnographic study of a Black King Gang in the Robert Taylor community. Venkatesh accidentally stumbles upon the gang lead by J.T. and decided to study them. Throughout his journey he learns from the violence and illegal activity he witnesses that “in the projects it’s more important that you take care of the problem first. Then you worry about how you took care of it”’ (Venkatesh. 2008:164). He witnesses beatings, selling of illegal drugs, and exploitation of residents; but he also gained a lot of knowledge about the community. He works with J.T. and Ms. Bailey, the community leader, closely through his study. J.T. has taken a sociology class and he allows Venkatesh to shadow the gang
The transition from a convenience based to a cost conscious economy has certainly been a rough path for the western world especially the United States. After the recent economic turmoil that received extensive media coverage during the first decade of the 21st centaury, budget trims is a common knowledge from small business organizations to large multi-national corporations. This is evident in the privileges and conveniences consumers and employees receive at an establishment. A classic example of revenue management and optimization is in the airline industry. With smaller seats, higher passenger load and fees and charges levied on peanuts and baggage, most airlines are in fierce competition to reduce fair prices. The issues with regard to budget cuts in first world nations has a profound impact on less fortunate third world and other dependent countries; This is especially true with regard to human development and sustainability programs sponsored by wealthier nations. In the article "The real-world effects of budget cuts" by Michael Gerson an argument and reality check is imposed on inconceivable and in the author's mind irrational withdrawal of capital on life supporting programs. The author also makes a personal appeal especially for those of us who believe in the ideology of pro-life.
More often than not it is not the crime the people choose to engage in, but the reason why they have to turn to such drastic measures. Due to these negative public opinions many of the men and woman of the Robert Taylor homes were unemployed leading to crime which further discredited their cause. In the Chicago projects, many of the black folk within the community were unemployed. This created a major problem when it came to having to provide the necessities for themselves and their families. In result of this, many of the men and young boys turned to gang affiliations, such as the Black Kings. Women on the other hand were not allowed to be members of the Black Kings or any gang of that matter, which left only so many ways to survive. Many women often put their trust in non gang affiliated figures in power, such as Mrs. Bailey, who was seen as a provider and protector of women. This of course did not always work out considering it was quite expensive to afford this peace of mind. Therefore, it was not uncommon for many women to turn to the ways of prostitution or stealing as a means of providing for their family. As Sudhir began to expand his research farther than the closed biased views of J.T., he came to an understand how much it really took to survive in the projects of Chicago.
A number one bestseller many say is grasping in amazement: Freakonomics is said to unravel the untold stories of life. Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner break common misconceptions of economics by revealing its true science. Freakonomics shatters the view of economics being an arid study of finance and markets. They pull in information to make inferences on past occurrences subtly influence on the present. Freakonomics packs punches with its countless number of tables and figures, serving as concrete data to make their assumptions. Levitt & Dubner in the beginning identify the fundamental Latin phrase post hoc ergo propter hoc in the sentence, “…just because two things are correlated does not mean that one causes the other”, due to their entire novel being based on correlation. Freakonomics’ explicit exploration of the hidden side of everything captivate economist with unmentioned inferences backed up with reasoned correlation, linking compelling topics to shatter misconceptions about controversial stories, ending with a brief consensus of economic pattern limitations.
This chapter's main idea is that the study of economics is the study of incentives. We find a differentiation between economic incentives, social incentives and moral incentives. Incentives are described in a funny way as "means of urging people to do more of a good thing or less of a bad thing", and in this chapter we find some examples public school teachers in Chicago, sumo wrestling in Japan, take care center in Israel and Paul Feldman's bagel business of how incentives drive people and most of the time the conventional wisdom turns to be "wrong" when incentives are in place.
For this online assignment, I have decided to talk about Sudhir Venkatesh’s Gang Leader for a Day, chapter 4. This chapter spoke out the most to me in this book. So far in the last three chapters, we have learned that how Sudhir is a graduate student doing a research on the daily lives of poor black lives in Chicago. In this chapter we see Sudhir interacting with the group leader of the gang Black Kings in Robert Taylor. At first JT the group leader or the boss comes off very strong on Sudhir, laughing on his face about the questioner he has prepared to ask the gang members or the people living in that building, he is suggested by JT that he should get to know people first. Not only that Sudhir is not accepted in the area first because of his
These gangs tend to hang out in certain places and claim it as their territory. Many of the gang members are drawn together by similar interests, and are brought up in similar neighborhoods. The Social Disorganization Perspective The social disorganization perspective follows the substance users to their living era and environment. Social disorganization perspective examines why individuals move from one environment to another and how they struggle to adjust to a new environment, and how they are lured or forced into substance use, deviance, or criminal activity in the face of difficulty in the new environment or due to their individual maladjustments. On the other hand it studies how a particular environment causes stress, disillusionment, and disorders among individuals who live in it, and why substance abuse, deviance, crime, and other social problems tend to increase in a time when or in a place where change occurs abruptly.
Venkatesh, S. A. (2008). Gang leader for a day: a rogue sociologist takes to the streets. New York: Penguin Press.