Peter Ubel, a self-described "flaming moderate," begins the book describing some of the things free markets fail to address - redistribution to smooth out bad luck, externalities, irrational participants, and imperfect information. He focuses on the latter two in this critique of unconstrained free markets and the fundamentalists who endorse it. Pop economist Tim Harford, for example, claims habitual smokers and gamblers are merely rationally demonstrating revealed preference and advertising actually adds consumer value to products.

Human beings, who evolved thousands of years ago in small groups on African veldt, are unsurprisingly irrational and innumerate when faced with the modern world. We are often not very good at acting in our own (or society's) long-term best interest. Marketing is a huge and profitable business, working harder every day to find new ways to exploit human weaknesses. There are simple ways, Ubel claims, to address our failings without disproportionately hampering economic development or personal freedoms.

Not much is new in this book but it is a good readable introduction to some of the problems introduced by behavioural economics, with a slant toward health issues. ( )