IRB: Freakonomics: 2

It's clear that Steven Levitt knows how to make his economics book practically jump off the shelves; rather than discussing the tax returns or typical organization of a franchise, this chapter was all about drugs and the gangs of Chicago ghettos. The following chapter, arguably Levitt's most controversial one in all of his works, combines two topics that Americans are so interested in that they seem to jump off the page: abortion and its potential to decrease crime rates long-term. But these topics teach more than just obscure connections between seemingly unrelated, yet fascinating, stories. The collection and synthesis of the data displayed demonstrates Levitt's overarching message: how to ask the right questions. He writes, "If you can question something that people really care about and find an answer that might surprise them—that is, if you can overturn the conventional wisdom—then you may have some luck" (89). Accordingly, this chapter's title is: Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live With Their Moms?
Rhetorically, Levitt goes beyond asking intriguing questions. Rather than displaying several tables of statistics on the operations of drug gangs, he takes his readers on a journey with a relateable and extremely intelligent man named Venkatesh, who actually lived with and studied a Chicago gang first-hand. This gets the audience interested in the story at hand, and makes the reader emotionally invested in the statistics later explained. And this drug gang has more than one layer: it acts as an analogy to the corporate world. Levitt writes, "So how did the gang work? An awful lot like most American businesses, actually, though perhaps none more so than McDonald's. In fact, if you were to hold a McDonald's organizational chart and a Black Disciples chart side by side, you could hardly tell the difference" (99). Thus, Levitt is able to connect the obscure topic back to something his middle-class audience can relate to.
This book is extremely interesting, but I don't honestly feel like it has drastically changed the way I consider the world around me. I feel like I may have failed Levitt, but to be fair I'm not a professional economist or question-asker. (How cool would that job title be, by the way?)