Culture and Prosperity: The Truth About Markets - Why Some Nations Are Rich but Most Remain Poor

Kay argues that the relative wealth or poverty of nations is dependent on the presence of an evolved social and cultural capital or networks, and that absent this economic policy prescriptions, such as the Washington Consensus, will fail. There is much truth in this although, despite his protestations, Kay is attacking a straw man to a large extent; a week of reading the Wall Street Journal is no more evidence of the ubiquity of belief in the American Business Model than reading the Mirror or Guardian proves that the onward march of socialism continues apace. This is a long, rambling, unfocused, but almost always interesting book which is well worth reading.

A much better economics book than most, sympathetic to the concerns of the left even while believing that most of their remedies are a bad idea, and with little patience for the self-satisfaction of the right.

Even so, there wasn't much here I haven't read before. I probably shouldn't waste my time reading much more economics, at least not pop economics.

Arrived Lausanne