Just Finished Reading: 23 Things They Don’t Tell You about Capitalism by Ha-Joon Chang (FP: 2010)

After enjoying his earlier introduction to Economics and still maintaining an interest in the subject (more to come) I couldn’t really resist something this jaunty and obviously irreverent. For one thing I like the author’s style. He writes in a knowledgeable but breezy way that is easy to read and yet manages to get across a lot of information that others would struggle to get beyond the boring. For another I happen to agree with a great deal of what he says. Whilst not a hard-nosed critic of Capitalism itself he heavily criticises the present neo-liberal market Capitalism that basically almost destroyed the world’s economy in 2008 before (wonderfully ironically) the hated and largely ‘irrelevant’ State bailed out the banks.

I certainly don’t intend to list all 23 ‘Things’ the author goes into but highlighting a few will give you an idea of where the author stands. There is no such thing as a free market. Companies should not be run in the interest of their owners (I bet that gave a few free marketers’ a heart attack!). The washing machine has changed the world more than the internet has. Free-market policies rarely make poor countries rich. Capital has a nationality. We do not live in a post industrial age. Making rich people richer doesn’t make the rest of us richer (well, duh!) Equality of opportunity may not be fair. Despite the fall of communism, we are still living in planned economies…. And much more.

As you can see from these few examples the author covers a vast swath of economics and draws on examples from across the world – especially after the recent crash and its aftermath. But not only does he offer a cogent criticism of the present system that got us into this mess but logically points out that there are other ways of ‘doing’ Capitalism that he thinks would do a much better job for the rest of us and not just for the top 1%.

There’s plenty of food for thought here in nicely bite sized chunks. You don’t need a degree in Economics to understand the text – if you did I’d definitely be scuppered – but a reasonable knowledge of current and recent events would definitely help. I found this to be a very fine addition to my economic reading and I’ll probably be picking up the rest of his books at some point. As it’s also a subject very much on my radar at the moment there will definitely be more on this subject to come. Recommended.    

[2015 Reading Challenge: A book with a number in the title – COMPLETE (24/50)]