23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism (original 2011; edition 2012)

A good counterpunch to all the current drivel about the wonderful legacy of Thatcher. Joon takes common statements from the economic religion that is neoliberalism etc. He then very clearly takes them to pieces, points out where they might (all too occasionally) be partly right and presents better ways of seeing the same situation from a more rational approach. It is always surprising how much of mainstream economics is a matter of religious belief, with its holy books and prophets and a constant scurrying effort to twist reality around the credo. Elsewhere I have seen it pointed out that the whole neoliberalism agenda is political rather than economic as, while it has failed to deliver growth or stability, it has delivered power back to an elite and undercut or destroyed the power of labour. That might actually be more likely.

All in all a rational, considered approach to what has been and what might be done with capitalism to get it back to working properly.

Basic economic ideas for the non-economist. The author, a British economist with some impressive credentials, made sense to me but I'm not much of a judge. I go to this kind of thing to gain more understanding. His slant basically is the 23 "myths" that we are led to believe about capitalism. The author recommends turning away from what we have been doing for the last 3 decades. KH ( )

The ONE thing they don't tell you about capitalism is that for a few people to be filthy rich, a larger number have to be dirt poor. Yet, this is not the kind of critique Ha-Joon Chang provides. Instead he takes the reader through 23 myths that people believe or accept about capitalism, and specifically financial capitalism (vs. industrial capitalism) as we know it, debunking each or at least providing some evidence for a reasonable doubt in the efficacy of said myth. Many of these myths are no-brainers, like "There is no such thing as a free market"; others, which seem to require a bit of fancy footwork on Chang's part ("More education in itself is not going to make a country richer").

In all, Chang's critique does drill a number of holes in neo-liberal economics orthodoxy, revealing the "dark side" as it were of a system that has revealed more of its true colors in the past decade than many might have imagined.

This would be a reasonable supplemental text for identifying various aspects of neo-liberal thought from a less glaze-eyed perspective. ( )

Informative, interesting, unexpected – and light. Damn near perfect read. ( )

IN PROGRESS

One of the apparent past times of the Mont Pelerin Society was to accuse each other of being socialists. Any suggestion that government had a role to play in economics was a target of derision. Von Mises, Hayek, Friedman, Stigler and Popper were founders. The meetings of this group helped shape what we have come to know as “free market” economics. Their ideas inspired some of the wildest market excesses of the 1980s and forward, leading to the crash of 2008.

The purpose of Ha-Joon Chang’s 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism is to chart a course for the future capitalism from 2008 that distances itself from free market policies. Much

Chang is quick to point out that he believes in Capitalism. ( )