Capitalism is Better for Who?

Currently reading: 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism by Ha-Joon Chang 📚 and straight off the bat, I’m giving this book the side eye.

“Despite its problems and limitations, I believe capitalism is the best economic system that humanity has invented. My criticism is of a particular version of capitalism that has dominated the world in the last three decades, that is free market capitalism. This is not the only way to run capitalism, and it is certainly not the best, as the record for the last three decades shows. The book shows that there are ways in which capitalism could, and can, be made better.“

I just can’t stop hearing in my head the line from V for Vendetta, “I’ve not come for what you hoped to do. I’ve come for what you did.”

I’m in an odd place with this book. It was written soon after the 2008 financial crash, being released in 2010. I’m curious to see what suggestions he gives and if any of them have been carried out. I was introduced to this book while watching a video interview Ha-Joon Chang gave with Gary Stevenson.

Stevenson’s strong suit is explaining the growing income inequality between the rich and poor in a way most people can understand. Where I think Stevenson (and I’m already getting the feeling from this book from Chang) comes up short are in the answers to the problems. There’s a fundamental misunderstanding of how politics works. If it “could” be changed, it would be. This form of capitalism exists because there’s the political will/space for it to exist in. The capitalism in the United States that exists, does so because Congressmen and women spend most of their time fundraising, in which they essentially leverage their power in exchange for political access. This podcast explains how it happens, but it’s the nature of the beast. These legislators don’t go to the average Joe for their need for daily cash infusions, they go to corporate America. Those corporations expect a return on their investment.

I keep dwelling on “…there are ways in which capitalism could, and can, be made better.” Better for whom? Better for the 50 million people on this planet who are “modern-day slaves”? Better for countries in Africa or South America?

I’m going to give the book a chance, but…

yeah.