Those Who Do Not Study History

Books read today: 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism (Ha-Joon Chang), The Wire: Truth Be Told (Rafael Alvarez)

I find it interesting that both these books, which present sharp, accurate and extremely trenchant criticisms of capitalism, find it necessary to pay homage to the prevailing orthodoxy of our time by stating in the introduction that no matter what the rest of the work says, we should rest assured that the author thinks that capitalism is teh awesome!!!!11111!!!!

Ha-Joon Chang's 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism is a further entry in the genre of books on economics for the non-economist, as exemplified by Freakonomics and Paul Krugman's The Return of Depression Economics. The book's message can be reduced to three basic statements: i) Economics is the continuation of politics by other means; ii) Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it and iii) If you want your country to prosper, keep economists (especially those of the free market variety) the fuck away from your economy. 23 Things is a well written, easily accessible text, although, history buff that I am, I found relatively little in the book that was new (unlike Krugman's book, which was both very accessible and very informative about aspects of international trade and the global economy which were previously obscure to me).

23 Things seemed to me a perfect gift for the politically interested adolescent, partly because it is and easy read, and partly because if any adult still believes in trickle down economics or that Africa is poor because Africans are lazy, even the best researched and most persuasive argument in the world is unlikely to change their mind (although perhaps I give both too little and too much credit here).

The most interesting aspect of 23 Things, and the other books like it I have read recently is the lack of a coherent alternative to capitalism as now practiced; Chang does present in his conclusion a list of eight principles (such as "stop believing that people are paid what they deserve" and "manufacturing is not irrelevant") that should be used when reconstructing the global economy, but no mechanism for putting those measures into practice is proposed; how, for example, are we to change a belief? We are living through the greatest crisis of capitalism since 1929, and yet whilst it is apparent to all but the wilfully blind that capitalism has failed, there are no new ideologies waiting in the wings to take its place. We have ideas for fixing partsof the system that failed, or are failing (the Tobin Tax, more regulation, smarter regulation, environmentalism), but there is no popular ideology like the Free Market or Communism that combines these criticisms, and the desire for change, into a single movement. I would guess that some general popular anti-capitalist movement will coalesce in the next few years, but what exact form (socialist, fascist, religious) that movement will take, I do not know.

The second book I've read in the last couple of days, The Wire: Truth Be Told, is HBO's official series guide. I normally don't reading series guides, in the same way that I avoid the commentary tracks on DVDs, as I find that it shatters the illusion I need to enjoy the work. However, this book was a Christmas present, and, as always with the Wire, I was extremely pleasantly surprised, and I found the book was both extremely informative and, precisely because the world of the Wire is so heavily grounded in real life, it did nothing to destroy the illusion necessary for a work of fiction (so if you're reading this guys - thanks!).

The episode guide which forms the backbone of the book is very useful (especially if you are looking for one particular scene), but it is the extras - the interviews and small focus articles scattered through the text - which make the book great. There is, for example, an interview with the drug lord who inspired the character of Stringer Bell, a man named Little Melvin Williams, a mathematical genius who had no other outlet for his talent apart from a life of crime and a brief biography of the original Bubbles (who was denied the happy ending of his namesake). The only things missing here are an interview with Idris Elba (whose stellar performance as Stringer Bell is particularly impressive if you've ever seen him perform with his native London accent) and a discussion of the character of Brother Mouzone, the bow tie wearing hitman from New York.

Reading the description I've given here, it may seem surprising that the author feels that he must apologise for the attack on capitalism contained in the book; but it is precisely the accuracy of the portrait of life in Baltimore given in the Wire that David Simon feels he must apologise for; like Gogol, the writers of the Wire find that any realistic portrait of life in inner city Baltimore must implicitly condemn it. And more than anything else, the Wire showed us the death of the American Dream, whether the dream died by despair, as seen in the dock workers in Season 2, or by being realised; Marlo Stanfield is the American Dream made flesh, and it is abhorrent.