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Review
A masterful debunking of some of the myths of capitalism ... Witty, iconoclastic and uncommonly commonsensical ... this book will be invaluable (Observer )
Important .. persuasive . [an] engaging case for a more cautious and caring era of globalisation (Financial Times )
Myth-busting and nicely-written . the best economists are those who look around at our man-made world and ask themselves "why?". Chang is one (Independent )
In 23 lucid, sometimes breezily didactic chapters, Chang takes apart the stricken ideology of neoliberalism. Chang's method is not to engage with the neoliberals but to knock them down with assertions. (Paul Mason, Economics Editor, Bbc Newsnight Guardian )
Ha-Joon Chang is a formidable critic...and a true exponent of the art of political economy (Michael Lind Prospect )
Chang's...iconoclastic attitude has won him fans such as Bob Geldof and Noam Chomsky. (Rachel Shields The Independent on Sunday )
For anyone who wants to understand capitalism not as economists or politicians have pictured it, but as it actually operates, this book will be invaluable. (John Gray Observer )
Important .. persuasive . [an] engaging case for a more cautious and caring era of globalisation (Financial Times )
Myth-busting and nicely-written . the best economists are those who look around at our man-made world and ask themselves "why?". Chang is one (Independent )
In 23 lucid, sometimes breezily didactic chapters, Chang takes apart the stricken ideology of neoliberalism. Chang's method is not to engage with the neoliberals but to knock them down with assertions. (Paul Mason, Economics Editor, Bbc Newsnight Guardian )
Ha-Joon Chang is a formidable critic...and a true exponent of the art of political economy (Michael Lind Prospect )
Chang's...iconoclastic attitude has won him fans such as Bob Geldof and Noam Chomsky. (Rachel Shields The Independent on Sunday )
For anyone who wants to understand capitalism not as economists or politicians have pictured it, but as it actually operates, this book will be invaluable. (John Gray Observer )
Product Description
In 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism one of today's most iconoclastic thinkers destroys the biggest myths about the world we live in.
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
This galvanizing, fact-packed book about money, equality, freedom and greed proves that the free market isn't just bad for people - it's an inefficient way of running economies too. Here Chang lays out the alternatives, and shows there's a better way.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A South Korean economics academic working in Cambridge has written this very useful book that arms you for arguments you may have with yourself (!) or friends about how economics actually works. He has the intellectual self confidence (teaching at Cambridge) and the independence of mind (an Asian living in Europe) to be more objective about economics than anything else I can think of. We are all blinkered in our outlook, but he is far less so. This book explodes many right wing ideological myths that have become accepted.
Let's face it, a lot of gunk we hear from people objecting to capitalism is even more nonsensical than the self-serving quasi-religious beliefs in the free market you get from people "earning" (well more accurately "being paid") hundreds of thousands a year for moderate work.
We need academics who can think independently and objectively, and explain their work. This book does just that both
Let's face it, a lot of gunk we hear from people objecting to capitalism is even more nonsensical than the self-serving quasi-religious beliefs in the free market you get from people "earning" (well more accurately "being paid") hundreds of thousands a year for moderate work.
We need academics who can think independently and objectively, and explain their work. This book does just that both
91 of 97 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The financial crisis has sparked renewed debate about the free-market orthodoxy of the last 30 years, particularly in the so called Anglo-Saxon economies (US and UK), but also through international institutions like the WTO and World Bank. The crisis has even brought the debate to popular science magazines, asking if our current economic models should be torn up and re-formulated in exactly the same way as any other scientific theory doesn't agree with the results. Climate change is forcing us to face up to the unintended consequences of industry and consumption, forcing us to consider the 'true costs' of our activities and their effects on the wider environment. Many people are left to wonder if complex financial instruments created by hedge funds and banks, have ended up doing more damage to the real economy they were meant to benefit. Capitalism, in the form encouraged for three decades, appears to have turned on itself.
Ha-Joon Chang's book, brings these issues into lucid focus. This however isn't a socialist pamphlet - Capitalism is argued to be the least worse economic system we have invented (he doesn't trumpet for its superiority or inevitability). Like Nassim Taleb's 'Black Swan', the tendency is to go beyond 'what they tell you' (theory) and wish to explore what's really happening.
The 23 things brilliantly de-mythologize tenants of 'free market' ideology, through wonderfully lucid examples and lively discussion of the issues. The style isn't cold or academic (he's actually quite an amusing writer), so it's a lot of fun to read and lands its punches with strong arguments over slogans or empty rhetoric. He's not saying we shouldn't have a market, but he is saying our ideas about their development and nature are often idealised, lead to the opposite of what we wish to achieve, or don't match the facts.
The puritanical conversation about capitalism we have suffered from up to now is wonderfully dispelled in this book, leading to some startling conclusions and eye opening historical examples. My feeling having read it is of optimism, as it seems we finally have economists that can write books for mere mortals to read, but also have a more sceptical and perhaps practical outlook on our economy (on what works and what demonstrably doesn't, the limit of markets and of governments, with an eye on greater social aims and values).
It's a book that more than makes up for its unpromising front cover. I can't recommend it enough.
Ha-Joon Chang's book, brings these issues into lucid focus. This however isn't a socialist pamphlet - Capitalism is argued to be the least worse economic system we have invented (he doesn't trumpet for its superiority or inevitability). Like Nassim Taleb's 'Black Swan', the tendency is to go beyond 'what they tell you' (theory) and wish to explore what's really happening.
The 23 things brilliantly de-mythologize tenants of 'free market' ideology, through wonderfully lucid examples and lively discussion of the issues. The style isn't cold or academic (he's actually quite an amusing writer), so it's a lot of fun to read and lands its punches with strong arguments over slogans or empty rhetoric. He's not saying we shouldn't have a market, but he is saying our ideas about their development and nature are often idealised, lead to the opposite of what we wish to achieve, or don't match the facts.
The puritanical conversation about capitalism we have suffered from up to now is wonderfully dispelled in this book, leading to some startling conclusions and eye opening historical examples. My feeling having read it is of optimism, as it seems we finally have economists that can write books for mere mortals to read, but also have a more sceptical and perhaps practical outlook on our economy (on what works and what demonstrably doesn't, the limit of markets and of governments, with an eye on greater social aims and values).
It's a book that more than makes up for its unpromising front cover. I can't recommend it enough.
61 of 67 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Ha-Joon Chang, economist at Cambridge University, is a familiar author to many in the general public by now for his persistent and eloquent efforts (when writing) to combat the economic orthodoxy on several major policy points. In particular, he is known for his defense of protectionism as a means to promote economic growth and for his rejection of the idea that 'free trade' and 'free markets' lead to better outcomes than alternatives such as government dirigisme. In "23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism", he attempts to make the lessons of heterodoxy familiar to as wide a public as possible, addressing 23 orthodox economic clichés that are often accepted by a skeptical general public only because they seem to be supported by all in the economic field. In making the counterarguments accessible and generally known, Chang has done the English-speaking world a great service.
The 23 things he discusses can be roughly clustered into a number of groups: he discusses the orthodoxies of free trade as against protectionism, the orthodoxies of free markets as against government intervention, the orthodoxies of wage policy (particularly the idea that wages are infallibly determined by individual marginal productivity), the orthodoxy that inequality of income and outcome does not matter, and finally the idea that financial managers and economists know best. On all of these points, he has very important lessons to convey to policymakers, civil servants, and the general public to show that these things should either be rejected out of hand or be taken with a large truckload of salt. Using the strengths of economic history, he accessibly shows in each of these cases how the cliché is either refuted by the facts or itself an incoherent idea, or both.
That said, sometimes his critique does not go quite far enough, and this shows the limitations of Chang's own economic theory standpoint. As he makes clear, the book itself is intended to criticize the orthodoxies of 'free market' capitalism, but not capitalism itself. As a result, his critique is not as powerful and does not convey as many important popular lessons as it could. For example, although he is quite right about the relation between protectionism, government intervention, and growth, he does not criticize the concept of growth itself as the only goal in economic policy, nor does he point out the essential fact that growth can in fact be bad for the median living standard if it causes the distribution of wealth to be more unequal. He also, because of his market economy predilections, vastly understates the success of planned economies historically, despite referring at one point of the book to Robert Allen's excellent research on Soviet industrialization policy. He also does not point out that the strong capitalist investor state he favors itself historically has tended to impede the development of more egalitarian outcomes and tends to be repressive of unions and collective action. Finally, he does not critique any of the assumptions of microeconomics, only macroeconomics.
Nonetheless, most of the 23 lessons are well taken and although I have some disagreements with a number of them, they are exceedingly well formulated for public understanding and indeed much closer to a real picture of how capitalist economies work than any of your average macroecon textbooks. It is therefore to be hoped that this book will have a wide audience.
The 23 things he discusses can be roughly clustered into a number of groups: he discusses the orthodoxies of free trade as against protectionism, the orthodoxies of free markets as against government intervention, the orthodoxies of wage policy (particularly the idea that wages are infallibly determined by individual marginal productivity), the orthodoxy that inequality of income and outcome does not matter, and finally the idea that financial managers and economists know best. On all of these points, he has very important lessons to convey to policymakers, civil servants, and the general public to show that these things should either be rejected out of hand or be taken with a large truckload of salt. Using the strengths of economic history, he accessibly shows in each of these cases how the cliché is either refuted by the facts or itself an incoherent idea, or both.
That said, sometimes his critique does not go quite far enough, and this shows the limitations of Chang's own economic theory standpoint. As he makes clear, the book itself is intended to criticize the orthodoxies of 'free market' capitalism, but not capitalism itself. As a result, his critique is not as powerful and does not convey as many important popular lessons as it could. For example, although he is quite right about the relation between protectionism, government intervention, and growth, he does not criticize the concept of growth itself as the only goal in economic policy, nor does he point out the essential fact that growth can in fact be bad for the median living standard if it causes the distribution of wealth to be more unequal. He also, because of his market economy predilections, vastly understates the success of planned economies historically, despite referring at one point of the book to Robert Allen's excellent research on Soviet industrialization policy. He also does not point out that the strong capitalist investor state he favors itself historically has tended to impede the development of more egalitarian outcomes and tends to be repressive of unions and collective action. Finally, he does not critique any of the assumptions of microeconomics, only macroeconomics.
Nonetheless, most of the 23 lessons are well taken and although I have some disagreements with a number of them, they are exceedingly well formulated for public understanding and indeed much closer to a real picture of how capitalist economies work than any of your average macroecon textbooks. It is therefore to be hoped that this book will have a wide audience.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Propaganda
The issues in this book are very interesting, but I was extremely disppointed for 2 reasons:
1. Read more
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Published 19 days ago by Knut
short book review
I found the book easy to read and happily devoid of economic jargon. The author's style was reader-friendly, tinged with slight attempts at humour. Read more
Published 25 days ago by askar
So much more than an economics primer
I came across this book by accident in Waterstones and as usual actually purchased from Amazon at 50% of the Waterstones price. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Richard B
Not enough analysis.
Firstly this review is not driven by ideological differences with the author (I thoroughly enjoyed 'Bad Samaritans' and 'Kicking away the Ladder' by the same author); rather it is... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Charles
Good book for a current account of capitalism
I especially liked the historical examples used to describe each "Thing" in the book.
While it is true that the last chapter has almost 90% of the book in 10 pages, you... Read more
While it is true that the last chapter has almost 90% of the book in 10 pages, you... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Ozgur Guler
An objective view of of free market implausibility
A hugely enlightening antidote to the nonsensical 'greed is good' creed of the monetarist, Thatcherite free market capitalists. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Maurellius
Rubbish
This is a poor book. It's all very opinionated, there's very little sharing of facts/information to support the opinions, and it skits all over the place. Read more
Published 2 months ago by TimRobertson
Good reading with few exceptions
This is a good reading on various aspects of capitalism. The language is easy to read and concepts have been explained in mostly easy manner. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Mobi
Down to earth careful analysis
The good thing of this brief yet accurate analysis is that the author is not anti-capitalist therefore his observations come from an expert in economics point of view.
Published 3 months ago by BLU VENTURES LTD.
Wow, I understood it all!
23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism, by Ha-Joon Chang.
(Currently a Reader in the Political Economy of Development at the University of Cambridge)
In all... Read more
(Currently a Reader in the Political Economy of Development at the University of Cambridge)
In all... Read more
Published 3 months ago by mythicalmagpie
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