Challenges popular misconceptions while making startling revelations about free-market practices, explaining the authors views on global capitalism dynamics while making recommendations for reshaping capitalism to humane ends. By the author of Bad Samaritans. ( A) witty, iconoclastic and uncommonly commonsensical guide to the follies of economics...Each of Changs 23 propositions may seem counterintuitive, even contrarian. But every one of them has a basis in fact and logic, and taken together they present a new view of capitalism.---John Gray, ObserverIncisive and entertaining...What they tell you is that free markets and minimum government work best. What they dont tell you is that this formula is bound to deliver inferior outcomes.---Robert Skidelsky, New StatesmanThere is a long and glorious tradition in economics of debunking conventional wisdom. The great Lord Keynes did it all the time...( Chang) has come up with his version...( He) has produced a lively, accessible and provocative book.---David Smith, Sunday TimesEconomics, as it has been practiced in the last three decades, has been positively harmful for most people.Have you wondered, How did massive economic collapse take nearly the entire world by surprise? Ha-Joon Chang has twenty-three answers for you: the things that free-market apostles didnt tell us about capitalism. This is a lighthearted book with a serious purpose: to lay bare the assumptions behind neoliberal economic dogma. As Chang shows with devastating wit, all economic choices are also political ones, and its time for us to be honest about them.Chang, the author of the bestselling Bad Samaritans, has established himself as one of the worlds most iconoclastic economists, a voice of contrarian sanity in the tradition of John Kenneth Galbraith and Joseph Stiglitz. 23 Things They Dont Tell You about Capitalism equips us with an understanding of how global capitalism works---and doesnt. Chang is no enemy of capitalism: it is, he observes, the worst economic system in the world, except for all the others. Ultimately, he offers a vision of how we can shape that system to humane ends, instead of becoming slaves of the market. Thing 1: There is no such thing as the free market. Thing 5: The washing machine has changed the world more than the Internet. Thing 13: Making rich people richer doesnt make the rest of us richer. Thing 22: Financial markets need to become less, not more, efficient. If youve wondered, how did we not see the economic collapse coming? Ha-Joon Chang knows the answer: we didnt ask what they didnt tell us about capitalism. This is a lighthearted book with a serious purpose: to question the assumptions behind the dogma and sheer hype that free-market fundamentalists have spun since the Age of Reagan. Chang, author of the international bestseller Bad Samaritans, is one of the worlds most respected economists, a voice of sanity—and wit—in the tradition of John Kenneth Galbraith and Joseph Stiglitz. 23 Things They Dont Tell You About Capitalism equips readers with an understanding of how global capitalism works—and doesnt. In his final chapter, "How to Rebuild the World," Chang offers a vision of how we can shape capitalism to humane ends, instead of becoming slaves of the market.
