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Ultimate Price: The Value We Place on Life
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About Ultimate Price: The Value We Place On Life
Product Description How much is a human life worth? Individuals, families, companies, and governments routinely place a price on human life. The calculations that underlie these price tags are often buried in technical language, yet they influence our economy, laws, behaviors, policies, health, and safety. These price tags are often unfair, infused as they are with gender, racial, national, and cultural biases that often result in valuing the lives of the young more than the old, the rich more than the poor, whites more than blacks, Americans more than foreigners, and relatives more than strangers. This is critical since undervalued lives are left less-protected and more exposed to risk. Howard Steven Friedman explains in simple terms how economists and data scientists at corporations, regulatory agencies, and insurance companies develop and use these price tags and points a spotlight at their logical flaws and limitations. He then forcefully argues against the rampant unfairness in the system. Readers will be enlightened, shocked, and, ultimately, empowered to confront the price tags we assign to human lives and understand why such calculations matter. Review “Timely — and, frankly, sometimes shocking. . . . Ultimate Price exposes a system rife with troubling assumptions and inequality that reduces each human to a data point. Well-written and readable, the book avoids being overly academic while still presenting a meticulously researched argument of why we all should take the time to understand how our own lives are priced.” ― BuzzFeed “Price tags on human lives are everywhere.” -- Kai Ryssdal, ― Marketplace “Should be required reading for anyone sitting down to watch the evening news." ― New Books Network "To ration resources and seek to re-open businesses, accountants have to assign price tags to life. . . . In Ultimate Price, a detailed analysis of how government organisations and corporations define the monetary value of human life, Howard Friedman tours the uncomfortable architecture of this calculus." ― The Spectator "Friedman argues that we must devise more equitable ways to assign value to human life. . . . Readers are exhorted to understand how lives are priced so that they might demand better formulas." ― Science “Provides a concise review of some of the scientific literature on valuing life including some of the moral issues one must consider when making these judgments. . . . Certainly worth a read for those looking to learn more on this interesting topic.” ― Healthcare Economist "Very clear and well-informed. It has loads of thought-provoking examples."? ― Enlightened Economist “Looks deeply into the structurally problematic factors that impact the price tags Americans are given for our lives.”? ― Hacking Finance “A reflection and criticism of the data cult of contemporary technological bureaucracy.” ― First Financial Network “In meticulous detail, Friedman shows that not all lives are valued equally, that social and economic inequalities are often reproduced and compounded in how we calculate the value of any one life . . . . Friedman draws a vivid picture of how uneven power, competing interests, and social and economic inequality influence how we value life.” ― Literary Review of Canada From the Back Cover “A timely and valuable study of how society values individual lives. Friedman gets to the heart of society priorities. Indispensable reading.”—Kenneth R. Feinberg, Former Administrator of the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund "What is a human life worth? That question seems repugnant. The answers that society gives are often unfair and irrational. But our justice system, environmental regulations, product safety, life insurance, health care, and abortion decisions demand answers. This gripping book is essential reading on a topic that you’d like to avoid but can’t."—Jared Diamond, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel and other best-selling books. "This
