I still believe you could probably get a PhD in any subject if you just have Radio 4 on in the background (Here’s a couple of those things: “The best way to boost the economy is to redistribute wealth downward, as poorer people tend to spend a higher proportion of their income.” And: “Economics, as it has been practised for the last 30 years has been harmful for most people.”) The philosopher and author John Gray – another master of the telling aphorism – writing in this paper, suggested that Chang was not only the most trenchant critic of disastrous neoliberal orthodoxies, but also that his book was required reading for any political party serious about finding solutions.

He came to global prominence after the financial crash of 2007-8 with two bestselling books that picked over the bones of the carnage wrought by the banks: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism and the shorter, wittier, brilliantly persuasive 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism. If Margaret Thatcher was a tragedy, imposing this untested theory on a nation, then this time it was a really bad joke.”Ĭhang, 59, who grew up in South Korea, taught economics at Cambridge for more than 30 years before taking up a professorship at Soas University of London this summer. I’m reminded of that famous quote from Karl Marx about history first as tragedy then farce. In reality, in almost all cases, after they cut taxes for the rich and made them much wealthier, investment actually fell. “Thatcherism was heavily based on Reaganomics, on the idea that if you give the rich more money, they would reinvest it. A badly executed revival of a failed idea?

An economist gets lunch