Synthetic Worlds is a surprisingly profound book about the social, political, and economic issues arising from the emergence of vast multiplayer games on the Internet. What Castronova has realized is that these games, where players contribute considerable labor in exchange for things they value, are not merely like real economies, they are real economies, displaying inflation, fraud, Chinese sweatshops, and some surprising in-game innovations.

Economics spreads happiness.

There is much more to life than what gets measured in accounts. Even economists know that.

Failure is inevitable; it happens all the time in a complex economy.

The more grotesque your boss's pay and the less he has do to earn it, the bigger the motivation for you to work with the aim of being promoted to what he has.

We should not try to design a better world. We should make better feedback loops.

A lot of international companies invest in the U.K. as a base for doing business with the rest of the European Union.