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The Invisible Heart: An Economic Romance By Russell Roberts. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 2001. 271 Pp. $22.95 hardcover.
The title, Invisible Heart, is a play on words from Adam Smith's invisible hand. The subtitle, An Economic Romance, refers to both love by an economist for a woman and his love of economics. Sam Gordon teaches economics at an exclusive prep school in Washington, D.C. The romance begins when he meets Laura Silver, a new poetry teacher at the same school. The school is located halfway between the National Cathedral and the Zoo-- between the angels and the animals. In its early days, teachers used this proximity to remind students that man lay between the divine and the profane, and it was the school's job to push students in the right direction. Now the school's job is to push them into the Ivy League.
Sam is very market oriented and sees the world as a positive sum game, where on balance everyone is made better off by the economic system. For Laura, the economic world is at best zero sum, with the poor being poor because of the rich. He wants much less government, and she wants much more. Love blooms as they explain their beliefs to each other. While private love is blooming at school, the public is viewing an explosive drama on Capitol Hill.
Erica Baldwin is the crusading head of a Federal agency that is exposing Charles Krauss, a corporate executive, as a miscreant of the first magnitude. Erica is the attorney and fighter that Laura aspires to be,...