Thing 1: There is no such thing as free market.

Thing 4: The washing machine has changed the world more than the Internet.

Thing 5: Assume the worst about people, and you get the worst.

Thing 13: Making rich people richer doesn't make the rest of us richer.

If you've wondered how we did not see the economic collapse coming, Ha-Joon Chang knows the answer: We didn't ask what they didn't tell us about capitalism. This is a lighthearted book with a serious purpose: to question the assumptions behind the dogma and sheer hype that the dominant school of neoliberal economists—the apostles of the freemarket—have spun since the Age of Reagan.

Chang, the author of the international bestseller Bad Samaritans , is one of the world's most respected economists, a voice of sanity—and wit—in the tradition of John Kenneth Galbraith and Joseph Stiglitz. 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism equips readers with an understanding of how global capitalism works—and doesn't. In his final chapter, "How to Rebuild the World," Chang offers a vision of how we can shape capitalism to humane ends, instead of becoming slaves of the market.

Ha-Joon Chang teaches in the Faculty of Economics at the University of Cambridge. His books include the bestselling Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism . His Kicking Away the Ladder received the 2003 Myrdal Prize, and, in 2005, Chang was awarded the Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought.

張夏準 英籍韓裔學者，劍橋大學經濟學教授，發展經濟學專傢。2003年獲綱納·繆達爾奬，2005年獲華西裏·列昂惕夫奬。著有國際暢銷書《富國的僞善：自由貿易的迷思與資本主義秘史》和《富國陷阱：發達國傢為何踢開梯子》。