Chapter 2 Summary

In Chapter 2, the authors discuss the economic term known as "information asymmetry." As the book explains, the term information asymmetry refers to when a person uses his information advantage to gain power to the detriment of others. The discussion of information asymmetry begins with a brief history of the Ku Klux Klan. According to the authors, much of the Klan's power in the 1940s lies in the fact that it maintains so much secrecy in everything it does. After World War II, a man named Stetson Kennedy leads to the Klan's ultimate downfall by exposing many of its secrets. Kennedy infiltrates the Klan by becoming a member of a Klan group in Atlanta, where he learns all of the group's secret rituals, names and handshakes, as well as its hierarchy. Kennedy contacts the producers of the then-popular radio show Adventures of Superman and...