23 Things They Don't Tell You about Capitalism

Thing 1: There is no such thing as the free market. Thing 4: The washing machine has changed the world more than the Internet. Thing 5: Assume the worst about people, and you get the worst. Thing 13: Making rich people richer doesn't make the rest of us richer.

If you've wondered how we did not see the economic collapse coming, Ha-Joon Chang knows the answer: we didn't ask what they didn't tell us about capitalism. This is a lighthearted book with a serious purpose: to question the assumptions behind the dogma and sheer hype that the dominant school of neoliberal economists — the apostles of the free market — have spun since the Age of Reagan.

23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism equips listeners with an understanding of how global capitalism works — and doesn't. 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.

Ha-Joon Chang teaches in the Faculty of Economics at the University of Cambridge.

Endorsements

Kicking Away the Ladder received the 2003 Myrdal Prize.

In 2005, Chang was awarded the Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought.