Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Chang (Bad Samaritans) takes on the "free-market ideologues," the stentorian voices in economic thought and, in his analysis, the engineers of the recent financial catastrophe. Free market orthodoxy has inserted its tenterhooks into almost every economy in the world-over the past three decades, most countries have privatized state-owned industrial and financial firms, deregulated finance and industry, liberalized international trade and investments, and reduced income taxes and welfare payments. But these policies have unleashed bubbles and ever increasing income disparity. How can we dig ourselves out? By examining the many myths in the narrative of free-market liberalism, crucially that the name is itself a misnomer: there is nothing "free" about a market where wages are largely politically determined; that greater macroeconomic stability has not made the world economy more stable; and a more educated population itself won't make a country richer. An advocate of big, active government and capitalism as distinct from a free market, Chang presents an enlightening precis of modern economic thought-and all the places it's gone wrong, urging us to act in order to completely rebuild the world economy: "This will [make] some readers uncomfortable...[;] it is time to get uncomfortable." (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Chang (economics, Univ. of Cambridge, UK; Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism) returns to deliver another candid volume on economics, breaking down his discussion into 23 "things" ranging from a postindustrial society to efficient markets. Each bite-sized section, about ten pages in length, contains a commonly held belief about capitalism followed by Chang's debunking of that myth. His discussion focuses not on moving away from capitalism as an economic system, but on the ways capitalism can be improved. In this vein, Chang offers seven ways to read the book based on the reader's knowledge of capitalism and interests. VERDICT Chang makes no secret of his not being a free-market economist, and all of his arguments demonstrate this. While 23 Things is a good overview of the big issues in economics for a general audience, those who are new to the subject may want to seek out other authors to develop a more balanced view of the topic.-Elizabeth Nelson, UOP Lib., Des Plaines, IL (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Think the market is rational and that business knows best? Ha-Joon Chang (Economics/Univ. of Cambridge; Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism, 2007, etc.) argues otherwise.The author takes clear delight in pricking holes in a variety of received-wisdom balloons, most of them emanating from rightward-tending theorists. Take the idea, for example, that the government cannot pick a winner in the marketplace, which is why the TARP bailout and the takeover of General Motors sat so poorly with so many business types. Wrong, says Ha-Joon Chang (and the success of both efforts would seem to bear him out): Governments are obviously capable of picking winners, but the hard part is getting them to improve their averages, just as is true of private enterprise (for which he cites the dreaded example of Microsoft Vista). "The free market doesn't exist," he writes, shaking Economics 101 assumptions to the core. Instead, all markets are restricted by rules and regulations, and necessarily so, while governments are always involved in the market. Wages, the hallmark distinction between rich and poor nations, are politically more than economically determined. "So, when free-market economists say that a certain regulation should not be introduced because it would restrict the 'freedom' of a certain market," writes the author, "they are merely expressing a political opinion that they reject the rights that are to be defended by the proposed law." Those rights are mostly those of workers, but the author, an equal-opportunity iconoclast, also insists that in rich countries, most people are paid more than they're worth. Only immigration controls keep the labor market from being flooded by workers from poor countries, who will accept lower rates of pay.Eminently accessible, with a clearly liberal (or at least anticonservative) bent, but with surprises along the wayfor one, the thought that markets need to become less rather than more efficient.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
