Create Your Own Economy: The Path to Prosperity in a Disordered World by Tyler Cowen

From the Publisher

One of the most respected behavioral economists in the world and coauthor of the "best economics blog in the universe"* offers an essential guide to success in a radically new hyper-networked age.

How will we live well in a super-networked, information-soaked, yet predictably irrational world? The only way to know is to understand how the way we think is changing.

As economist Tyler Cowen boldly shows in Create Your Own Economy, the way we think now is changing more rapidly than it has in a very long time. Not since the Industrial Revolution has a man-made creation-in this case, the World Wide Web-so greatly influenced the way our minds work and our human potential. Cowen argues brilliantly that we are breaking down cultural information into ever-smaller tidbits, ordering and reordering them in our minds (and our computers) to meet our own specific needs.

Create Your Own Economy explains why the coming world of Web 3.0 is good for us; why social networking sites such as Facebook are so necessary; what's so great about "Tweeting" and texting; how education will get better; and why politics, literature, and philosophy will become richer. This is a revolutionary guide to life in the new world.

Publishers Weekly

In this provocative study of behavioral economics, Cowen (Discover Your Inner Economist) reveals that autistic tendencies toward classification, categorization and specialization can be used as a vehicle for understanding how people use information. Cowen spends a great deal of time dispelling autism's societal stigma, arguing that "mainstream society is reaping benefits from mimicking autistic cognitive strengths." As stimulating as is the premise, the book often feels like its own long exercise in categorization, with each chapter an analysis of the human mania for classification (e.g., the obsession with ranking achievements and endeavors). According to Cowen, human brains are constantly absorbing bits of information that get smaller and are delivered faster as technology advances. The more information people receive, the more they crave-this shorter attention span is far from a flaw to the author, but a liberating mechanism that allows humans time to contemplate more ambitious, long-range pursuits. The relentless analysis is occasionally overwhelming, but Cowen's illustration of our neurological filing system may help readers understand the mass consumption of information and just about everything else. (July)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

What People Are Saying

Temple Grandin
"Create Your Own Economy will open your mind to thinking differently. The unique thought processes of individuals on the autism spectrum provide a great value to our world. This book will help you to be smart and successful in your own way."--(Temple Grandin, author of Thinking in Pictures)

Robert H. Frank
"If you're curious about where society and the economy are headed, you'll search in vain for anyone with more interesting insights than Tyler Cowen. He's a genuine visionary and Create Your Own Economy is a tour de force."--(Robert H. Frank, author of The Economic Naturalist and Professor of Economics at Cornell University)

Daniel H. Pink
"Only a mind like Tyler Cowen's could weave Facebook, Zen Buddhism, Sherlock Holmes, and so much more into a coherent and compelling argument. Create Your Own Economy will change the way you think about thinking."--(Daniel H. Pink, author of A Whole New Mind)

Samuel R. Sommers
"The modern world bombards us with data just begging to be organized, from iPod playlists to digital vacation photos. Tyler Cowen offers an entertaining tour of our information age, pondering implications for how creative we are, how long our attention span is, how our politics work, and the future of our economy."--(Samuel R. Sommers, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Tufts University)

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