The Darwin economy : liberty, competition, and the common good / Robert H. Frank.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Paralysis -- Darwin's wedge -- No cash on the table -- Starve the beast, but which one? -- Putting the positional consumption beast on a diet -- Perpetrators and victims -- Efficiency rules -- It's your money -- Success and luck -- The great tradeoff -- Taxing harmful activities -- The libertarian's objections reconsidered.

"The premise of economist Adam Smith's 'invisible hand'--a tenet of market economics--is that competitive self-interest shunts benefits to the community. But that is the exception rather than the rule, argues writer Robert H. Frank. Charles Darwin's idea of natural selection is a more accurate reflection of how economic competition works . . . because individual and species benefits do not always coincide. Highlighting reasons for market failure and the need to cut waste, Frank argues that we can domesticate our wild economy by taxing higher-end spending and harmful industrial emissions."--Nature.