Following is a book review on Eamonn Butler’s The Economics of Success: twelve things politicians don’t want you to know, first an excerpt from Financial Times, then a little something on the book.
The Economics of Success: twelve things politicians don’t want you to know by Eamonn Butler
In today’s climate, as free market capitalism struggles to shake off its association with the ills of the past few years, and calls for more and deeper regulation of markets abound, it is refreshing to read an unashamed defence of the open market and an assault on the assumption that government intervention is an optimal solution.
This ought not to come as a surprise, since the author is director of the Adam Smith Institute. The Economics of Success is robust in its refusal to meet on ground chosen by free market critics. As Dr Butler points out, anti-capitalists are eager to argue about the actual experience of capitalism versus the imagined reality of an anti-capitalist society, but less keen to frame a discussion pitting the reality of capitalism against the reality of tried alternatives, or the theory of capitalism versus the theory of an anti-capitalist alternative.
See full The Economics of Success: Book Review by Financial Times
The Economics of Success – Description
Listening to politicians, one would think that the mechanism of capitalism has failed. They tell us that the solutions lie in their hands: more debt, banking-regulation, and ‘oversight’. But are they telling us everything they know? The Economics of Success: twelve things politicians don’t want you to know makes for uncomfortable reading for politicians who like to lull people into a false sense of security, and for regulators who like to please their political masters. It focuses on twelve truths on which the success of our economic system is based. Our government likes to lecture developing nations on the cornerstones of prosperity, but appears ignorant when talking to its own electorate. Here the misleading spin is exposed incisively with up-to-date facts and figures. In addition real economic solutions are put forward – showing how we, too, can benefit from the world’s rising tide of prosperity.
