John Gray reviews Ha-Joon Chang's 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism :

...free market policies rarely make poor countries richer; global companies without national roots belong in the realm of myth; the US does not have the highest living standards in the world; the washing machine changed the world more than the internet; more education does not of itself make countries richer; financial markets need to become less, not more efficient; and – perhaps most shocking to Chang's colleagues – good economic policy does not require good economists.

---

Capitalism is not only about creating wealth, it is also about power – and western power is waning. Economic energy is shifting to the emerging countries, while in the west economies stagnate and politicians continue to worship at the altar of the free market...Rather than reforming itself, free-market capitalism looks set simply to decline.

The Full Review Is Here

Ha-Joon Chang on why the internet has not changed the world as much the washing machine did :

By liberating women from household work and helping to abolish professions such as domestic service, the washing machine and other household goods completely revolutionised the structure of society. As women have become active in the labour market they have acquired a different status at home – they can credibly threaten their partners that if they don't treat them well they will leave them and make an independent living. And this had huge economic consequences. Rather than spend their time washing clothes, women could go out and do more productive things. Basically, it has doubled the workforce.

And demolishes the "information revolution" importance placed on the internet having speeded up our ability and capacity to communicate with each other :

"...we overestimate the internet and ignore its downsides. There's now so much information out there that you don't actually have time to digest it."

"Before the invention of the telegraph in the late 19th century, it took two to three weeks to carry a message across the Atlantic. The telegraph reduced it to 20 or 30 minutes – an increase of 2,000-3,000 times. The internet has reduced the time of sending, say, three or four pages of text from the 30 seconds you needed with a fax machine down to maybe two seconds – a reduction by a factor of 15. Unless I'm trading commodity futures, I can't think of anything where it's really so important that we send it in two seconds rather than a few minutes."

The Full Interview With Ha-Joon Chang Is Here