"Fascinating Economics" by: [Netherlands] Mandeville, [France] Bastiat, [USA] Friedman, [USA] Stigler, [USA] Reed, [UK] Hayek Publisher: CITIC Press

Introduction
"Fascinating Economics" is a series of "economics pamphlets", which mainly selects some masterpieces from the important and interesting topics of famous economists in the history of economic development, and presents them to readers in Chinese and English. The titles of these pamphlets are novel, the language is lively, and the content is the eternal classic topics in society. In addition to some well-known articles, this series of "economics pamphlets" also includes some translations that have never been published in China before.
This collection includes five works by famous economists Bernard Mandeville, Frederic Bastiat, Leonard Reid, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, and George Stigler, all of which are new translations. The specific titles are as follows:
Fable of the Bees: This book describes a "kingdom of bees" where every bee is pursuing its own interests almost frantically, and every bee is full of evils such as vanity, hypocrisy, fraud, hedonism, jealousy, and lust. Surprisingly, when every bee is frantically pursuing its own interests, the entire hive presents a prosperous scene. Later, the evil bees suddenly woke up and asked the gods to let them have virtues such as kindness, integrity, and honesty. However, at this time, the entire bee kingdom was in a state of depression. Mandeville used the "Fable of the Bees" to illustrate that the "evil flower" of selfish desires bears the good fruit of public interests. This is also called the "Mandeville Paradox" by later generations. Regarding this paradox, scholars of the same generation and later generations from various fields such as philosophy, ethics, literature, economics, politics, and psychology have discussed it. The most famous one is that Adam Smith, the "father of economics", was inspired by this to write "The Wealth of Nations" and "The Theory of Moral Sentiments".
The book was first published in 1705.
"The Invisible Eye": This book is a classic work on economic thinking. The author Bastiat uses the broken window as an introduction to point out that we often have thinking errors in political and economic decision-making, only seeing the "visible" part and ignoring the "invisible" part, which leads to decision-making failures and causes various problems in life. The topics in the book include taxes, government subsidies (in the fields of literature, education, etc.), public construction, trade protectionism, employment issues, etc. No one has ever used such a concise and easy-to-understand narrative method to clearly reveal the key to rational economic policies. In addition, for enterprises and individuals, when making and evaluating decisions, establishing this kind of thinking mode will also benefit us a lot. Since the 20th century, Hayek, Taleb, Kahneman and other famous people from all walks of life have been deeply influenced by this book, and Hazlitt has written the classic "One Lesson Economics" that has sold well all over the world.
This book was first published in 1850.
"The Story of a Pencil": This book is a self-narration about a pencil. In this world, no one has ever mastered all the knowledge to produce a simple pencil. Its birth comes from the joint efforts of thousands of people. And these people who jointly produce this pencil may not know each other, hate each other, or even be hostile to each other, but this does not prevent them from cooperating to produce a pencil. When this pencil is produced, each of us only needs to pay a very small price to get it. This magical and fascinating story explains that something as simple as a pencil is actually the product of extremely complex economic processes based on division of labor, international trade and comparative advantage. Over the past few decades, this booklet has been reprinted many times and made into animations by people and circulated around the world. Nobel economist Friedman also quoted this story in his popular TV show and best-selling book "Free to Choose" in the United States.
This book was first published in 1958.
"The Lost Roof": This beautifully written, rigorously reasoned, and popular book attacking rent control was co-written by Nobel Prize winners in economics Milton Friedman and Alfred Stigler. The literal translation of the title "Roof or Ceiling" is a pun, meaning that we have to choose between the roof (housing) above our heads or the ceiling-like rent ceiling. Because the United States had to control prices during World War II, it set a maximum price for each commodity. This price, like the ceiling of a house, could not be higher, so this maximum price was called "ceiling". The two authors used this as a comparison to the housing crisis in 1906 and the solutions to the housing problem since World War II, pointing out that the rent control policy at the time did not achieve the goals that decision makers wanted to achieve. After the book was published, the American Federation of Real Estate Associations distributed about 500,000 copies. Because the implementation of rent control in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France and other countries has produced the consequences foreseen by the two authors, the book has also been in great demand, and has been repeatedly published by the media and reprinted by publishers.
This book was first published in 1945.
The Tiger's Tail: This book contains excerpts from almost all of Hayek's economic works written over 40 years (from the 1920s to the 1960s), from economic analysis before the Great Depression of 1929 to several wars of words with Keynes in the 1930s and the capital theory and comments on trade union policies in the following 20 years. Although it covers a wide range of content, it seamlessly integrates the important themes of Hayek's works on money, capital, business cycles and the international monetary system with an unparalleled compact structure and clear organization. The publication of this book brought Hayek back to the British and European public, and many media and academic journals published book reviews, which to a certain extent led to his winning of the Nobel Prize in Economics two years later. Although the book mainly uses Hayek's own words, under the compilation and organization of Suda R. Shenoy, the book has become easy to understand, which can be easily understood by laymen and students, and can also benefit professional economists and teachers, as well as relevant policy makers.
This book was first published in 1972.
Interpretation of the prefaces by Mao Shoulong and Feng Xingyuan
Wei Sen, Chen Jiaying, Lei Yi, Feng Lun, Yu Shicun, Lü Jianzhong, Wang Wei, Lu Zhengwei, Qiu Ye, Zhu Haijiu, Li Weiguang, Liu Xiaobing, Fu Weigang, Huang Zhangjin, Hou Anyang, Peng Kaiping, Zhang Songren and other well-known people from all walks of life read together
Spanning more than 300 years, this masterpiece was written by several generations of economic masters for the general public.
Bilingual in Chinese and English, put the wisdom that influences the world into your pocket and mind
Simple but profound, economics that can be read like a novel
A collection of five classics by six masters
Create fascinating and profound knowledge
Economics Pamphlet: A collection of important and interesting works by famous economists in the history of economics development, presented in both Chinese and English
· Approachable classics: These pamphlets have novel titles, lively language, and content that is a timeless classic topic in society
· Classic among classics: influenced classics such as The Wealth of Nations, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, Economics in One Lesson, Island Economics, Economic Thinking, Fast and Slow, etc.
New translation: In addition to some well-known articles, it also covers some works that have never been published in China before