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23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism and what they mean for our economic prospects

Wednesday 10 October 2012 | 1 hour 27 minutes 1 econds

It has been four years since the global financial crisis broke out. If this were a normal downturn, the economy should have already recovered. Instead, we are talking about the prospect of a ‘lost decade’. Unemployment, especially youth unemployment, stays stubbornly high, while the financial elite keep drawing huge salaries and bonuses, even as their shenanigans are constantly exposed. What has gone wrong? In the talk, the author debunks the prevailing myths – 23 of them, to be exact – and show how our economic system, especially the financial system, needs to be completely re-wired if we are to build a more dynamic and fairer economy.

Ha-Joon Chang teaches economics at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of Kicking away the Ladder and Bad Samaritans. He is the winner of 2003 Gunnar Myrdal Prize and 2005 Wassily Leontief Prize. His latest book is 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism.