BUKU BERKAITAN CAPITALISM

 Capitalism: A Global History, a 1,300-page magnum opus by Harvard historian Sven Beckert. 

The length hits you between the eyes, and very few of us can hope to sit down and read it from cover to cover. Once that’s understood, the approach that a historian takes to capitalism, and how the system evolved and adapted and only got a name long after it was well established, is really valuable for anyone used to the lenses of economics or finance. Dip in, and it’s fascinating to watch how the strands came together globally (there are chapters on everywhere from China and India to Barbados).

The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism by the Financial Times’ principal economic commentator, Martin Wolf. 

The author was my colleague and in many ways a mentor for 29 years, so I’m not dispassionate. What I respect about Martin is that he can recognize that he’s wrong and change his mind. After championing globalization and the neoliberal project, the Global Financial Crisis forced him to realize that democracy will survive only if capitalism adapts very significantly. There are plenty of charts and numbers and punchy analyses but it’s animated by the personal; his parents were refugees from the Holocaust, and he’s horrified by the illiberal regressive turn the world is taking.

Capitalism and Its Critics: A History: From the Industrial Revolution to AI by John Cassidy, financial commentator of The New Yorker. 

This is another history of capitalism, this time told through the views of critics (who include the likes of Adam Smith), from its dawn in the Industrial Revolution and British colonialism on forward. Cassidy writes beautifully, and his meditation on whether the transformation wrought by artificial intelligence could be as profound the Industrial Revolution two centuries ago is fascinating.

Capitalism 4.0: The Birth of a New Economy in the Aftermath of Crisis by Anatole Kaletsky, founder of the financial strategy group Gavekal. 

Kaletsky (a former financial journalist who was briefly a colleague) wrote this in 2010 as a defense of central banks’ approach to keeping the economy alive on life support. In many ways, it now reads like an executive summary of the weightier tomes that have come out more recently, and his basic argument, spelled out clearly, remains intact — capitalism adapts, that’s what it has always done, and it will probably do so again. 

What Went Wrong With Capitalism by the investment banker Ruchir Sharma, who currently heads Rockefeller Capital Management. 

Yet another beautifully written book, Sharma’s key insight is that government intervention actually increased in the Reagan-Thatcher era, despite appearances to the contrary, and again after the GFC. Politicians who thought they were pro-business were in fact pro-incumbent, making it too hard for new players to enter and engage in creative destruction. Things have worsened under Trump 2.0, by his diagnosis, since the book was published in 2024.

The Twilight Before the Storm: From the Fractured 1930s to Today’s Crisis Culture by Viktor Shvets, the chief strategist for Macquarie.

Shvets discusses the Fujiwara effect — what happens when two hurricanes collide — and applies it to the economy. His message, rich with history, is that the current situation really is as dangerous as the 1930s.

Call for Judgment: Sensible Finance for a Dynamic Economy by Amar Bhide of Columbia University.

Bidhe offered a straightforward polemic arguing that markets as they have evolved, in hyper-financialized and liquid form, are not what free-market economists like Hayek had in mind. The standardizations and top-down assumptions that go into making markets so liquid end up no better than the decisions that a communist planner might have made.

The Myth of Capitalism: Monopolies and the Death of Competition by Jonathan Tepper and Denise Hearne.

A beautifully researched and illustrated analysis, published in 2019, of how concentration in industry is damaging the economy. We discussed it with the authors here. 

The Techno-Optimist Manifesto by Marc Andreessen, entrepreneur.

This is a historically fascinating document that bears testimony to how misunderstood Silicon Valley considers itself to be, and how convinced the tech bros are that they hold the key to advancement. It’s written in an almost biblical cadence — and sets out a libertarian agenda. 

Stakeholder Capitalism: A Global Economy that Works for Progress, People and Planet by WEF founder Klaus Schwab.

Another document that has historic importance, bearing testimony to the attempt to reform capitalism from within by making it more responsive to the needs of all stakeholders. There was immense buy-in from the world’s business leaders and this book set out the case. The model it espouses is probably dead following Donald Trump’s return to power, but it bears reading.

The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age by Tim Wu.

Appropriately given its title, this is a small book — a brilliant restatement of the ideas of Louis Brandeis that formed the approach to antitrust of the last century, with a warning that corporations are far more powerful than ever conceived of. It’s polemical, and hard to disagree with. And it’s only a couple of hours of your time.