23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism

Ha-Joon Chang

Once you know that there is really no such thing as a 'free market', you won't be deceived by people who denounce a regulation on the grounds that it makes the market unfree. When you learn that large and active governments can promote rather than dampen economic dynamism, you will see that the widespread distrust of government is unwarranted. Knowing that we do not live in a post-industrial knowledge economy will make you question the wisdom of neglecting, or even implicitly welcoming, industrial decline of a country, as some governments have done. Once you realize that trickle-down economics does not work, you will see the excessive tax cuts for the rich for what they are: a simple upward redistribution of income, rather than a way to make all of us richer, as we were told.