By Lyndia Chen Yanru
Over the last three decades, the world economy has faced several complex and interrelated problems such as global climate change, food and energy scarcity, rising inequality, poverty, and more frequent and severe financial and economic crises. However, the capitalist system has been struggling to bring responses to those increasing problems and uncertainty. ~ Ali Ari
Capitalism at a Crossroads: A New Reset provides a holistic exploration of the challenges facing the capitalist economy today. The book addresses a wide range of topics such as food and environmental sustainability, health, political and financial crises, social and income inequalities, trade wars, AI and technological growth. By applying various economic theory and frameworks to historical and current global events, the book positions the study of economics within an interdisciplinary context.
It traces the evolution of economic policy shaped by key economists and significant world events. Through this in-depth analysis, the book offers insight into the classic and contemporary perspective.
Structured in two parts, the first part outlines the problems faced by the capitalist economy and the second part explores possible solutions and their limitations. While the majority of the chapters address the issues broadly, a few chapters focusing on case studies provided readers with more concrete examples.
What drew me to this book was its innovative proposition of managing capitalism with a ‘best by’ date. This provides a fresh perspective on questioning the current economic model and to consider alternatives or solutions that may work better.
The book is written in such a way that even readers without economic background can easily follow the authors’ arguments. The themes through the chapters are intricately inter-woven, through the use of similar concepts and ideas, which help to reinforce memory retention and overall understanding.
As an economics-trained librarian, I find this book highly captivating. It sheds light on the critical issues of the current capitalist economy, and explores alternative views to economic growth and development, prompting me to rethink traditional assumptions. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in the future of capitalism.
