23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism
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3.8 • 43 Ratings
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- £4.99
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- £4.99
Publisher Description
'A witty and timely debunking of some of the biggest myths surrounding the global economy' - Observer
Ha-Joon Chang's 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism turns received economic wisdom on its head to show you how the world really works.
In this revelatory book, Ha-Joon Chang destroys the biggest myths of our times and shows us an alternative view of the world, including:
There's no such thing as a 'free' market
Globalization isn't making the world richer
We don't live in a digital world - the washing machine has changed lives more than the internet
Poor countries are more entrepreneurial than rich ones
Higher paid managers don't produce better results
We don't have to accept things as they are any longer. Ha-Joon Chang is here to show us there's a better way.
'Lively, accessible and provocative ... read this book' - Sunday Times
'The new kid on the economics block ... Chang's iconoclastic attitude has won him fans' - Independent on Sunday
'Lucid ... audacious' - Guardian
'Important ... persuasive ... an engaging case for a more caring era of globalization' - Financial Times
'A must-read ... incisive and entertaining' - New Statesman Books of the Year
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Chang (Bad Samaritans) takes on the "free-market ideologues," the stentorian voices in economic thought and, in his analysis, the engineers of the recent financial catastrophe. Free market orthodoxy has inserted its tenterhooks into almost every economy in the world over the past three decades, most countries have privatized state-owned industrial and financial firms, deregulated finance and industry, liberalized international trade and investments, and reduced income taxes and welfare payments. But these policies have unleashed bubbles and ever increasing income disparity. How can we dig ourselves out? By examining the many myths in the narrative of free-market liberalism, crucially that the name is itself a misnomer: there is nothing "free" about a market where wages are largely politically determined; that greater macroeconomic stability has not made the world economy more stable; and a more educated population itself won't make a country richer. An advocate of big, active government and capitalism as distinct from a free market, Chang presents an enlightening pr cis of modern economic thought and all the places it's gone wrong, urging us to act in order to completely rebuild the world economy: "This will some readers uncomfortable... it is time to get uncomfortable."
Customer Reviews
Highly recommended!
I like it! It is enlightening. Although it does not advocate for a real change of system. In my opinion the book tries to re-invent it. Inequality is not a product of bad capitalism, but of capitalism it self.