This book, by distinguished Cambridge economist Ha-Joon Chang (also author of this and this), is a superb exposition of how various aspects of the global economy are basically rigged in the favour of the rich, and covered up with a wide variety of pseudo-economic lies. I started reading it last week, powered through most of the rest of it on the far-too-long Megabus journey from Sheffield to London to Amsterdam, and have just now finished the last chapter while sat atop my suitcase in the train station while I wait for my friends to get here from the airport. I am very sleep deprived, it is busy here, I am writing this on my phone on borrowed Dutch wifi, and me and my housemates are about to go to a techno festival in the nearby forest this afternoon, so I am quite distracted - I don't even know when they're arriving here, but the general gist is that I don't have an awful lot of time to write things about this book, even though it was great.
Chang's style is friendly, accessible and readable - see my other posts about his other books for further discussion of that. His academic approach of demystifying economics to the general reader deserves applause, especially since he does so with such calm aplomb, and splits apart 'common knowledge' assertions about the way international economic systems work, then showing us in detail how and why certain presumptions aren't warranted, or how some things can't be properly understood yet, and how better explanations may lie just round the corner, if only we can be convinced to drop our unrelenting trust in the innate beneficent tendencies of rich people, large multinational corporations, rich countries' governments, and the hosts of apologists and aides to these three. Basically, we should drop our trust in these, because they're making life extremely hard for developing countries and the poor generally.
Throughout the course of the book, Ha-Joon dissects myths about globalisation, especially from a developmental perspective (looking at how rich countries became so, and are now depriving poor countries from using the same means as they did in order to develop), whether free trade is always the best option in a globalised world of varyingly-developed players, likewise whether foreign investment should be regulated, why public sector initiatives are demonised comparative to private sector ones and whether these suspicions are warranted, the complexities of copyright law and ownership on an international stage, likewise for financial prudence and how far we should consider regulation of monetary systems to be sensible, where corrupt and undemocratic countries stand in all of this, and whether some poor countries are simply that way because of an economically unhelpful culture.
Every chapter is rigorously researched and argued, but made clear for the non-economists who I hope will read this: we are shown a glimpse of a world which is truly unfair, where the orthodox preconceptions about these issues of justice from the science which is meant to impartially discern socioeconomic problems has been co-opted into perpetuating fictions about how people and countries develop so that the rich can stay rich and the poor can get poorer as the rich increasingly exploit them. We need more economists like Ha-Joon Chang; not an ideological leftist, but a common-sense whistleblower on the nonsenses and deceptions of his own subject. The book opens and closes with fictional near-future accounts of global business activity (I found these far too exciting, I love potted economic histories and these were basically one utopian and one dystopian track along the possibilities for our current world); these show just as clearly as the implications of his core chapters the sheer range of possibilities that exist for our world, if only we can properly adopt, nationally and internationally, policies conducive to equitable sustainable development.
Ha-Joon Chang's other two books (thus far blogged about), I would recommend to literally everyone - Economics: The User's Guide is an indispensable tool for general public education in the most important subject that they know probably not much about, and 23 Thing they don't tell you about Capitalism is a good book to flesh out that framework with a few added extra mythbusters to undo what may have been misled by the plutocratic media. Bad Samaritans is a bit more specialist but still a general readers' book; anyone with a broad interest in international economic justice, globalisation, and development; especially students studying something similar to this; should absolutely read it.
That was good timing, I can see my housemates meandering through the station. It is time for me to go have my eardrums burst by waves of raw delight amid happy Europeans and beautiful trees. I'm on a family holiday in rural Holland straight afterwards, on which I'll be doing a lot of reading, so (if there's wifi), see you soon.
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