Do you have a few hours to kill and can’t decide between reading a romance novel and learning a bit about basic economic concepts?  Your in luck, you can do both by reading The Invisible Heart: An Economic Romance by Russell Roberts.  The title, Invisible Heart, is a play on Adam Smith’s simile that resources in a free market move as if guided by an invisible hand.  Roberts’ theme is that good things happen in a free society as if promoted by a kind heart.  The story has romance and a side of intrigue but economics is at its core.

 Sam Gordon, the protagonist, is a 30 year old high school economics teacher at the exclusive Edwards School in Washington D.C.  He strongly believes in the free-market system and less government regulation.  His somewhat radical views and teaching style have gotten him in trouble with the school board.  He wants his students to be skeptical and learn to think for themselves.

 Laura Silver is the love interest.  She is a new English Literature teacher at the Edwards School.  She is from a family of lawyers and plans to go to law school after teaching for a few years.  She wants to be able to do her part to save the world.  She believes that government is needed to help the disadvantaged and to regulate corporations.

Sam and Laura’s first encounter does not go well.  They end up arguing over how to help the disadvantaged after Sam gives a beggar some money.  Laura believes Sam is wrong, believing that the beggar will just spend the money on drugs or alcohol.  In her opinion, giving him things that would not encourage destructive behaviors will better help the beggar.  Sam believes you should try and help people on their terms, not yours. He argues that people should be allowed to make their own choices; it is part of the essence of being human.  Laura is at first appalled by Sam’s views, even referring to him as being satanic.  But they meet, talk, and argue on several more occasions and romance blooms.

There is a sub-plot to the main story that has a surprise twist ending. Erica Baldwin is the head of the Office of Corporate Responsibility, a consumer watchdog agency.  She is trying to bring down, Charles Krauss, the unscrupulous CEO of HealthNet.  Mr. Krauss is relocating one of his pharmaceutical plants from the U.S. to Mexico, which will cause many workers of a small town to lose their jobs and in the opinion of Ms. Baldwin will lead to the exploitation of Mexican workers.  Krauss is also trying to hide the fact that one of the drugs that HealthNet is testing is not living up to expectations.  Will Erica be able to get the evidence she needs to bring Krauss to justice?

Teaching economic lessons is the real objective of the novel. They are demonstrated in the lessons that Sam teaches his class and in the debates that he has with Laura.  The importance of property rights is demonstrated in his class discussion of why we have plenty of chickens and cows but animals such as whales and falcons are endangered.  Supply and demand is illustrated in his explanation to Laura of why some people earn higher wages than others.

As a novel the book is adequate. The characters and storyline could have been fleshed out a little more.  As an introduction to economic concepts the book does a better job.  It was easy to read and understand the economic concepts presented.  It was a lot more fun to read than the usual economics textbook and got me to think about the ideals that Sam believes in.  Before reading the book, I had never thought much about how government regulation can be harmful.  It almost made me want to change over to the Libertarian party, almost.