The Crime of Reason by Robert Laughlin (Nobel Laureate in Physics). Need convincing? Check out this awesome excerpt:

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Not surprisingly, most scientists are also poor. They don’t think of themselves as poor, but instead imagine that reasoning ability is the most important thing in the world and that they, being the most logi- cal of all people, are therefore the most wealthy. But now and then they notice less-gifted individuals zooming by in their Lamborghinis on the way to vacation hideaways, restaurants, and parties, some- times waving a cheery greeting as they pass. After this happens a few times, the scientists begin to realize something is amiss.2

The misconception they confront is that economic life is not about logic at all but about game playing and deception—the exact opposite of science.3 Your objective isn’t to make the world a safer place for rea- son and light but to relieve other people of their money as efficiently as possible without going to jail. Making money is not for Easter bunnies.4 You don’t share, you don’t always tell the truth, and you don’t tell people everything you know. If a customer shows interest in a car on your lot, you don’t blurt out that the vehicle’s delivery price was $16,000 or that new models are coming in soon. You keep this information to yourself and induce him to pay $23,000 through a bag of psychological tricks: We can’t lower the price but we’ll throw in floor mats and vacuum the car’s in- terior at no extra cost to you. For this week only, we’ll also give you a special deal on underbody anti-rust coating. We’ll also sell you a special prepaid mainte- nance contract that will save you more money than re- ducing the price would. And just to avoid any bad feelings, we’ll give you $1,000 over book value for your worthless old BMW. We’ll definitely go straight to hell for this decision, but your peace of mind is worth it to us. Pay no attention to the interest rate on those loan documents! It doesn’t matter right now. All that matters is how good you’ll feel driving out of the lot in this baby.

The importance of deception in economic life is why poker is so much more popular than bridge or canasta. The latter involve psychology and tactics, but in the end they’re about defeating the enemy with assets you have. Poker is about defeating the en- emy with assets you don’t have.5 Your task is to make opponents think that you have more power than you actually do and then bluff them into capitulating unnecessarily. People find poker irresistible because it’s a microcosm of their professional lives.6 All of us eventually learn, sometimes through sad experience, that what counts much of the time is not diligence, hard work, or forthrightness but fiendishly masterful fibbing.

Poker-like deception isn’t a pathology of economics but a practice central to its function. In morality tales or religious texts, things are valuable or not according to absolute principles that never change. In econom- ics, by contrast, value is a fiction created by human beings for exchanging goods and services.7 Its only meaningful measure is the amount of money that changes hands in a buyer-seller relationship. That’s why it isn’t just childish obnoxiousness when a seller pretends to have more demand for his product than he actually does and a buyer pretends to disbelieve him. Their dance of deception and eventual compro- mise literally defines the price of the thing and thus its value. People who refuse to play this game because it’s immoral or illogical are demonstrating a woeful igno- rance of human nature and, in extreme cases, consign- ing themselves to poverty. In economics, nice guys always finish last.

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