18th book of 2020.
This book has a great start, giving a framework to think about modern economies, nearly declaring an economic ’end of history’ in that capitalism has proven to be the state that all developed countries have converged upon. I most appreciated the taxonomy for flavors of capitalism in the world today:
Classical Capitalism - Think belle epoch France or England. Meritocratic Liberal Capitalism - USA today. Increasing inequality, divergent interests between classes. Political Capitalism - Lots of problems with corruption. Able to sustain high growth rates.
I felt like each of these concepts would have justified a book to themselves, both in terms of how this nomenclature plays out across the world and at different points in history. Instead, the author talks about the future of capitalism as the system encroaches more and more into realms traditionally occupied by social norms. Also interesting, but I felt like this section was missing data for it to feel like anything beyond interesting musings.
Overall, I like that it gave me a good way to think about different capitalist systems, but would have wished for more detail on any of the myriad good ideas that are discussed throughout the book.