I recently finished watching some interviews on the 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism by Ha Joon Chang. Mr. Chang is a true capitalist who debunks the myths about capitalism. He is South Korean by descent and works on developmental economics at Cambridge University. His blunt and cutting approach tells you as it is – not as what it seems to be. His talk about the 23 things on Capitalism are absurd, counter intuitive and destroy the myths of the free market ideology.

Here are some of his major points:

There is no such thing as a free market:

Companies should not be run in the interest of their owners:

Most people in rich countries are paid more than they should be:

We do not live in a post-industrial age:

US does Not have the highest living standard:

Making the rich richer doesn’t make the rest of us richer:

Despite the fall of communism, we are in fact living in planned economies:

Notes:

Ha-Joon Chang, a Korean national, has taught at the Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge, since 1990. In addition to numerous articles in journals and edited volumes, Ha-Joon Chang has published 13 authored books (four of them co-authored) and 9 edited books (six of them co-edited). His main books include The Political Economy of Industrial Policy (1994), Kicking Away the Ladder – Development Strategy in Historical Perspective (2002), and Bad Samaritans – Rich Nations, Poor Policies, and the Threat to the Developing World (2007), and 23 Things That They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism (Penguin, 2010, and Bloomsbury USA, 2011). By 2011, his writings will have been translated into 21 languages.