The Efficient Society
Why Canada is as close to Utopia as it gets.
Joseph Heath

Efficient isn't normally a word that one thinks of about a country. Especially not Canada. But we must be doing something right; after all, Canada has topped the United Nations Best Place in the World to Live poll for nearly a decade. Although other nations have less income inequality, or more GDP, Heath theorizes that overall, Canada delivers a wider variety of goods and services to the citizens in a more efficient way.

We normally use the word efficiency in relation to machinery and processes. Taylor's time and motion studies at the beginning of the 20th century are a good example of this. Heath explains where the idea of efficiency came from, and how to apply it to a country by use of the Prisoner's Dilemma. It turns out that many of our choices can be reduced to a form of that dilemma.

That concept leads to interesting places, such as how markets really work and why they fail, in more detail than just the polar capitalistic / communist model. I took economics in university and understood the course work, but Heath brings to life why and how market inequalities happen, and what the consequences of internalizing and externalizing costs are. This is very important to understand because it drives company behaviour.

The book is readable, and quite free of the left or right wing political ranting that diminishes so many other books on similar topics. Heath has struck a good balance between economic detail that is often dry, and a superficial glossing over of the subject matter. He believes the market economy is very important, but also recognizes that it doesn't lead to optimum solutions in every case.

It made me think about how much I like how things are done in Canada. Heath points out how the tension between private and public services creates efficiencies in places you wouldn't expect. He also points out how the system is more complex than most of us realize, and that the price of thoughtless tinkering could be quite high.

This is well worth reading. I got it out of the library and am planning to get a copy for my library.

Penguin Viking, 2001
ISBN 0-670-89149-5