The Logic of Economic Calamities

How Markets Fail

How Markets Fail offers a brilliant intellectual framework . . . fine work

An essential, grittily intellectual, yet compelling guide to the financial debacle of 2009

A powerful argument . . . Cassidy makes a compelling case that a return to hands-off economics would be a disaster

This book is a well constructed, thoughtful and cogent account of how capitalism evolved to its current form

Telegraph Books of the Year recommendation

John Cassidy ... describe[s] that mix of insight and madness that brought the world's system to its knees

Anyone who enjoys a good read can safely embark on this tour with Cassidy as their guide . . . Like his colleague Malcolm Gladwell [at the New Yorker], Cassidy is able to lead us with beguiling lucidity through unfamiliar territory

John Cassidy has covered economics and finance at The New Yorker magazine since 1995, writing on topics ranging from Alan Greenspan to the Iraqi oil industry and English journalism. He is also now a Contributing Editor at Portfolio where he writes the monthly Economics column. 
 
Two of his articles have been nominated for National Magazine Awards: an essay on Karl Marx, which appeared in October, 1997, and an account of the death of the British weapons scientist David Kelly, which was published in December, 2003. He has previously written for Sunday Times in as well as the New York Post, where he edited the Business section and then served as the deputy editor. 
 
In 2002, Cassidy published his first book, Dot.Con. He lives in New York.

How did we get to where we are? John Cassidy shows that the roots of our most recent financial failure lie not with individuals, but with an idea - the idea that markets are inherently rational. He gives us the big picture behind the financial headlines, tracing the rise and fall of free market ideology from Adam Smith to Milton Friedman and Alan Greenspan. Full of wit, sense and, above all, a deeper understanding, How Markets Fail argues for the end of 'utopian' economics, and the beginning of a pragmatic, reality-based way of thinking.

John Cassidy

An intriguing account of how some of the most consequential ideas in economics developed, and how they forged the modern world…Several enjoyable evenings might be spent with Netflix off and Mr Cassidy’s new book open

A marvellously lucid overview of capitalism’s critics, written in good old-fashioned expository prose

Capitalism and its Critics [is an] unexpectedly lively romp through the two-and-a-half-century history of capitalism ... a zombie tale in which the mystery is why capitalism, having so many ill-wishers and so many chronic health problems, keeps rising anew from each crisis – be it the 1930s Great Depression or 2008 financial crisis – even stronger and more resilient. Cassidy ... offers gripping analyses of socialist communes, slavery, imperialism and monetarism; he takes us to the heart of such topical questions as whether tariffs are folly, as laissez-faire orthodoxy suggests, or essential to making America great again, as Donald Trump insists ... I predict it’ll become the intelligent beach read of the summer

Cassidy's range is impressive ... [he] makes the history of capitalism digestible by weaving together, in each chapter, the biography of each of his subjects with their key critique of capitalism, thus humanising otherwise dry debates about economic theory

Each chapter is a substantial essay on an economist, activist or policymaker and their work ... astonishing ...

Fascinating and informative. The history of capitalism is told through the eyes and legitimate concerns of its most articulate critics. This is intellectual history at its best. Essential reading for anyone who wonders how the modern world wandered off course

Simon Johnson, winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize for Economics and co-author of Power and Progress

John Cassidy’s Capitalism and Its Critics is an impressive history of arguments about capitalism, from the industrial age to our time. Clear and accessible, it is an invaluable touchstone for current debates about economic renewal in our post-globalization moment

Michael J. Sandel, author of The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?

A Battle of Ideas in the Modern World

At a time when we are faced with fundamental questions about the sustainability and morality of the economic system, Capitalism and Its Critics provides a kaleidoscopic history of global capitalism, from colonialism and the Industrial Revolution to the ecological crisis and artificial intelligence. 
 
John Cassidy adopts a bold new approach: he tells the story through the eyes of the system’s critics. From eighteenth-century weavers who rebelled against early factory automation to Eric Williams's paradigm-changing work on slavery and capitalism, to the Latin American dependistas, the international Wages for Housework campaign of the 1970s, and the modern degrowth movement, this absorbing narrative traverses the globe. It looks at familiar figures – Smith, Marx, Luxemburg, Keynes, Polanyi – from a fresh perspective, but also focuses on many less familiar, including William Thompson, the Irish proto-socialist whose work influenced Marx; Flora Tristan, the French proponent of a universal labour union; John Hobson, the original theorist of imperialism; and J. C. Kumarappa, the Indian exponent of Gandhian economics. 
 
Blending biography, panoramic history, and lively exploration of economic theories, Capitalism and Its Critics illuminates the deep roots of many of the most urgent issues of our time.

John Cassidy

Praise for Capitalism and Its Critics

An intriguing account of how some of the most consequential ideas in economics developed, and how they forged the modern world…Several enjoyable evenings might be spent with Netflix off and Mr Cassidy’s new book ope ...

A marvellously lucid overview of capitalism’s critics, written in good old-fashioned expository prose

Capitalism and its Critics [is an] unexpectedly lively romp through the two-and-a-half-century history of capitalism ... a zombie tale in which the mystery is why capitalism, having so many ill-wishers ...

An intriguing account of how some of the most consequential ideas in economics developed, and how they forged the modern world…Several enjoyable evenings might be spent with Netflix off and Mr Cassidy’s new book ope ...

A marvellously lucid overview of capitalism’s critics, written in good old-fashioned expository prose

Capitalism and its Critics [is an] unexpectedly lively romp through the two-and-a-half-century history of capitalism ... a zombie tale in which the mystery is why capitalism, having so many ill-wishers ...

An intriguing account of how some of the most consequential ideas in economics developed, and how they forged the modern world…Several enjoyable evenings might be spent with Netflix off and Mr Cassidy’s new book ope ...

A marvellously lucid overview of capitalism’s critics, written in good old-fashioned expository prose

Capitalism and its Critics [is an] unexpectedly lively romp through the two-and-a-half-century history of capitalism ... a zombie tale in which the mystery is why capitalism, having so many ill-wishers ...

Books by John Cassidy

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