From bestselling authors and journalistic titans Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, Abundance is a once-in-a-generation, paradigm-shifting call to renew a politics of plenty, face up to the failures of liberal governance, and abandon the chosen scarcities that have deformed American life. To trace the history of the twenty-first century so far is to trace a history of unaffordability and shortage. After years of refusing to build sufficient housing, America has a national housing crisis. After years of limiting immigration, we don’t have enough workers. Despite decades of being warned about the consequences of climate change, we haven’t built anything close to the clean-energy infrastructure we need. Ambitious public projects are finished late and over budget—if they are ever finished at all. The crisis that’s clicking into focus now has been building for decades—because we haven’t been building enough. Abundance explains that our problems today are not the results of yesteryear’s villains. Rather, one generation’s solutions have become the next gener­ation’s problems. Rules and regulations designed to solve the problems of the 1970s often prevent urban-density and green-energy projects that would help solve the problems of the 2020s. Laws meant to ensure that government considers the consequences of its actions have made it too difficult for government to act consequentially. In the last few decades, our capacity to see problems has sharpened while our ability to solve them has diminished. Progress requires facing up to the institutions in life that are not working as they need to. It means, for liberals, recognizing when the government is failing. It means, for conservatives, recognizing when the government is needed. In a book exploring how we can move from a liberalism that not only protects and pre­serves but also builds, Klein and Thompson trace the political, economic, and cultural barriers to progress and propose a path toward a politics of abundance. At a time when movements of scarcity are gaining power in country after country, this is an answer that meets the challenges of the moment while grappling honestly with the fury so many rightfully feel. Read more

“A unique voice on money, one singularly attuned to...his generation.” (San Francisco Chronicle) Buy as many lattes as you want. Spend extravagantly on the things you love. Live your rich life instead of tracking every last expense with Ramit Sethi’s simple, powerful, and effective six-week program for gaining control over your finances. This isn’t typical advice from a money expert. In this completely updated second edition, Ramit teaches you how to choose long-term investments and the right bank accounts. With his characteristic no-BS perspective, he shows how to squeeze every hidden benefit out of your credit cards. Crush debt and student loans. Learn the exact words to negotiate a raise. Set up an automatic payment system and get on with your life. Plus, new material on overcoming psychological barriers, love and money, new investments options, and real audience stories of how applying Ramit’s principles led to a rich life. “Don’t let the breezy, irreverent style of this book fool you. It contains serious advice on personal-finance decisions, from budgeting and savings to spending and investing.” (Burton G. Malkiel, author of A Random Walk Down Wall Street)PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio. Read more

Tower of Basel is the first investigative history of the world's most secretive global financial institution. Based on extensive archival research in Switzerland, Britain, and the United States, and in-depth interviews with key decision-makers—including Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve; Sir Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England; and former senior Bank for International Settlements managers and officials—Tower of Basel tells the inside story of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS): the central bankers' own bank. Created by the governors of the Bank of England and the Reichsbank in 1930, and protected by an international treaty, the BIS and its assets are legally beyond the reach of any government or jurisdiction. The bank is untouchable. Swiss authorities have no jurisdiction over the bank or its premises. The BIS has just 140 customers but made tax-free profits of 1.17 billion in 2011-2012. Since its creation, the bank has been at the heart of global events but has often gone unnoticed. Under Thomas McKittrick, the bank's American president from 1940-1946, the BIS was open for business throughout the Second World War. The BIS accepted looted Nazi gold, conducted foreign exchange deals for the Reichsbank, and was used by both the Allies and the Axis powers as a secret contact point to keep the channels of international finance open. After 1945 the BIS—still behind the scenes—for decades provided the necessary technical and administrative support for the trans-European currency project, from the first attempts to harmonize exchange rates in the late 1940s to the launch of the Euro in 2002. It now stands at the center of efforts to build a new global financial and regulatory architecture, once again proving that it has the power to shape the financial rules of our world. Yet despite its pivotal role in the financial and political history of the last century and during the economic current crisis, the BIS has remained largely unknown—until now. Read more

The Art of War is a renowned ancient Chinese military treatise written by Sun Tzu, a military strategist and philosopher. Composed around the fifth century BC, it provides valuable insights into warfare and strategy. The book emphasizes the importance of careful planning, understanding the enemy, exploiting weaknesses, and employing tactics to achieve victory. It covers various aspects of warfare, including tactics, intelligence gathering, leadership, and the importance of adaptability. It continues to be studied and applied in various fields beyond the military, including business and politics.   Insights into strategy and warfare Provides valuable insights into navigating dynamic and unpredictable environments in various domains Delves into the qualities of successful leaders Offers practical advice on how to gain advantages and outmanoeuvre opponents Emphasizes the importance of strategic thinking and planning Read more

A leading economist explores the global rise of the U.S. dollar and shows why its future stability is far from assuredOur Dollar, Your Problem argues that America’s currency might not have reached today’s lofty pinnacle without a certain amount of good luck. Drawing in part on his own experiences, including with policymakers and world leaders, Kenneth Rogoff animates the remarkable postwar run of the dollar—how it beat out the Japanese yen, the Soviet ruble, and the euro—and the challenges it faces today from crypto and the Chinese yuan, the end of reliably low inflation and interest rates, political instability, and the fracturing of the dollar bloc. Americans cannot take for granted that the Pax Dollar era will last indefinitely, not only because many countries are deeply frustrated with the system, but also because overconfidence and arrogance can lead to unforced errors. Rogoff shows how America’s outsized power and exorbitant privilege can spur financial instability—not just abroad but also at home. Read more

A revelatory and unexpected history of the rise of American capitalism—and an argument that entrepreneurial leaders in government, not the mythical “free market,” created the most dynamic economy the world has ever known.For many decades, a sacred myth has ruled the minds of policymakers and business leaders: free markets, untouched by the soiled hands of government, bring us prosperity and stability. But it’s wrong. American policy makers, on the right and the left, have spent much of the past century actively shaping our markets for social and political goals. Their work behind the scenes and out of the headlines has served as a kind of “marketcraft,” resembling the statecraft of international relations. Economist and writer Chris Hughes takes us on a journey through the modern history of American capitalism, relating the captivating stories of the most effective marketcrafters and the ones who bungled the job. He reveals how both Republicans and Democrats have consistently attempted to organize markets for social and political reasons, like avoiding gasoline shortages, reducing inflation, fostering the American aviation and semiconductor industries, fighting climate change, and supporting financial innovation. In recent decades, the art of marketcraft has been lost to history, replaced by the myth that markets work best when they are unfettered and free. Hughes argues that by rediscovering the triumphs and failures of past marketcrafters, we can shape future markets, such as those in artificial intelligence and clean power production, to be innovative, stable, and inclusive. Groundbreaking, timely, and illuminating, this is a must-read for anyone interested in economic policy, financial markets, and the future of the American economy. Read more

In this fifth edition of Basic Economics, Thomas Sowell revises and updates his popular book on commonsense economics, bringing the world into clearer focus through a basic understanding of the fundamental economic principles and how they explain our lives. Drawing on lively examples from around the world and from centuries of history, Sowell explains basic economic principles for the general public in plain English.Basic Economics, which has now been translated into six languages and has additional material online, remains true to its core principle: that the fundamental facts and principles of economics do not require jargon, graphs, or equations and can be learned in a relaxed and even enjoyable way.PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio. Read more

The landmark book that changed the way exceptional families think about their heritage, their wealth, and their legacy to future generations--now revised and expanded. Every family, looking at the next generation, hopes to confer advantages that are more than just material and financial--to inculcate character and leadership, to inspire creativity and enterprise, to help all family members find and follow their individual callings, and to avoid the financial dependency and loss of initiative that can all too often be an unwanted consequence of financial success. Yet many families never succeed in realizing that vision, much less sustaining it for three, four, or five generations and beyond. James Hughes has thought deeply about these challenges, and his insights are at once practical and profound. For more than three decades, he has personally guided multiple generations of families in creating strategies to preserve their human and intellectual capital as well as their financial assets. His teachings synthesize insights from psychology, anthropology, political history, philosophy, economic theory, and the law, with examples ranging from Aristotle to cutting-edge social science theory. His ideas have been taken up by numerous exceptional families, by their advisers, and by scores of authors, practitioners, and academics who have found value in the methods he pioneered. The first edition of this book, privately published, became a word-of-mouth classic. Now, Hughes has updated and substantially expanded it with new chapters that challenge conventional notions of wealth and offer guidelines for conserving family assets in the broadest senses. Filled with tested principles and practices for family governance and joint decision making, it is a rich source of workable wisdom that family members can put into practice today, to the enduring benefit and gratitude of future generations. Read more

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * MORE THAN ONE MILLION COPIES SOLD “A provocative read...There are few tomes that coherently map such broad economic histories as well as Mr. Dalio’s. Perhaps more unusually, Mr. Dalio has managed to identify metrics from that history that can be applied to understand today.” —Andrew Ross Sorkin, The New York Times From legendary investor Ray Dalio, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Principles, who has spent half a century studying global economies and markets, Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order examines history’s most turbulent economic and political periods to reveal why the times ahead will likely be radically different from those we’ve experienced in our lifetimes—and to offer practical advice on how to navigate them well. A few years ago, Ray Dalio noticed a confluence of political and economic conditions he hadn’t encountered before. They included huge debts and zero or near-zero interest rates that led to massive printing of money in the world’s three major reserve currencies; big political and social conflicts within countries, especially the US, due to the largest wealth, political, and values disparities in more than 100 years; and the rising of a world power (China) to challenge the existing world power (US) and the existing world order. The last time that this confluence occurred was between 1930 and 1945. This realization sent Dalio on a search for the repeating patterns and cause/effect relationships underlying all major changes in wealth and power over the last 500 years. In this remarkable and timely addition to his Principles series, Dalio brings readers along for his study of the major empires—including the Dutch, the British, and the American—putting into perspective the “Big Cycle” that has driven the successes and failures of all the world’s major countries throughout history. He reveals the timeless and universal forces behind these shifts and uses them to look into the future, offering practical principles for positioning oneself for what’s ahead. Read more

Author of cult classics The Pumpkin Plan and The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur offers a simple, counterintuitive cash management solution that will help small businesses break out of the doom spiral and achieve instant profitability.Conventional accounting uses the logical (albeit, flawed) formula: Sales - Expenses = Profit. The problem is, businesses are run by humans, and humans aren't always logical. Serial entrepreneur Mike Michalowicz has developed a behavioral approach to accounting to flip the formula: Sales - Profit = Expenses. Just as the most effective weight loss strategy is to limit portions by using smaller plates, Michalowicz shows that by taking profit first and apportioning only what remains for expenses, entrepreneurs will transform their businesses from cash-eating monsters to profitable cash cows. Using Michalowicz's Profit First system, readers will learn that:· Following 4 simple principles can simplify accounting and make it easier to manage a profitable business by looking at bank account balances.· A small, profitable business can be worth much more than a large business surviving on its top line.· Businesses that attain early and sustained profitability have a better shot at achieving long-term growth.With dozens of case studies, practical, step-by-step advice, and his signature sense of humor, Michalowicz has the game-changing roadmap for any entrepreneur to make money they always dreamed of. Read more

An urgent warning about the American economy from Ray Dalio, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Principles. Do big government debts threaten our collective well-being? Are there limits to debt growth? Can a big, important reserve currency country like the United States really go broke—and what would that look like?For decades, politicians, policymakers, and investors have debated these questions, but the answers have eluded them. In this groundbreaking book, Ray Dalio, one of the greatest investors of our time who anticipated the 2008 global financial crisis and the 2010–12 European debt crisis, shares for the first time his detailed explanation of what he calls the “Big Debt Cycle.” Understanding this cycle is critical for helping policymakers, investors, and the general public grasp where we are and where we are headed with the debt issue. Dalio’s model points toward surprisingly straightforward solutions for dealing with the debt problems that the US, Europe, Japan, and China face today. How Countries Go Broke also shows how these debt problems are related to the other forces—political within countries, geopolitical between countries, natural (droughts, floods, and pandemics), and technological (most importantly, AI)—that together are causing what Dalio calls the “Overall Big Cycle” changes in the world order. By reading this book, you will improve your understanding of what’s happening now and what to do about it. Read more

The New York Times bestseller from business journalist Christopher Leonard infiltrates one of America’s most mysterious institutions—the Federal Reserve—to show how its policies spearheaded by Chairman Jerome Powell over the past ten years have accelerated income inequality and put our country’s economic stability at risk. If you asked most people what forces led to today’s unprecedented income inequality and financial crashes, no one would say the Federal Reserve. For most of its history, the Fed has enjoyed the fawning adoration of the press. When the economy grew, it was credited to the Fed. When the economy imploded in 2008, the Fed got credit for rescuing us. But here, for the first time, is the inside story of how the Fed has reshaped the American economy for the worse. It all started on November 3, 2010, when the Fed began a radical intervention called quantitative easing. In just a few short years, the Fed more than quadrupled the money supply with one goal: to encourage banks and other investors to extend more risky debt. Leaders at the Fed knew that they were undertaking a bold experiment that would produce few real jobs, with long-term risks that were hard to measure. But the Fed proceeded anyway…and then found itself trapped. Once it printed all that money, there was no way to withdraw it from circulation. The Fed tried several times, only to see the market start to crash, at which point the Fed turned the money spigot back on. That’s what it did when COVID hit, printing 300 years’ worth of money in a few short months. Which brings us to now: Ten years on, the gap between the rich and poor has grown dramatically, inflation is raging, and the stock market is driven by boom, busts, and bailouts. Middle-class Americans seem stuck in a stage of permanent stagnation, with wage gains wiped out by high prices even as they remain buried under credit card debt, car loan debt, and student debt. Meanwhile, the “too big to fail” banks remain bigger and more powerful than ever while the richest Americans enjoy the gains of a hyper-charged financial system. The Lords of Easy Money “skillfully” (The Wall Street Journal) tells the “fascinating” (The New York Times) tale of how quantitative easing is imperiling the American economy through the story of the one man who tried to warn us. This is the first inside story of how we really got here—and why our economy rests on such unstable ground. Read more

A comprehensive and authoritative exploration of Bitcoin and its place in monetary historyWhen a pseudonymous programmer introduced “a new electronic cash system that’s fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party” to a small online mailing list in 2008, very few people paid attention. Ten years later, and against all odds, this upstart autonomous decentralized software offers an unstoppable and globally accessible hard money alternative to modern central banks. The Bitcoin Standard analyzes the historical context to the rise of Bitcoin, the economic properties that have allowed it to grow quickly, and its likely economic, political, and social implications.While Bitcoin is an invention of the digital age, the problem it purports to solve is as old as human society itself: transferring value across time and space. Author Saifedean Ammous takes the reader on an engaging journey through the history of technologies performing the functions of money, from primitive systems of trading limestones and seashells, to metals, coins, the gold standard, and modern government debt. Exploring what gave these technologies their monetary role, and how most lost it, provides the reader with a good idea of what makes for sound money, and sets the stage for an economic discussion of its consequences for individual and societal future-orientation, capital accumulation, trade, peace, culture, and art. Compellingly, Ammous shows that it is no coincidence that the loftiest achievements of humanity have come in societies enjoying the benefits of sound monetary regimes, nor is it coincidental that monetary collapse has usually accompanied civilizational collapse.With this background in place, the book moves on to explain the operation of Bitcoin in a functional and intuitive way. Bitcoin is a decentralized, distributed piece of software that converts electricity and processing power into indisputably accurate records, thus allowing its users to utilize the Internet to perform the traditional functions of money without having to rely on, or trust, any authorities or infrastructure in the physical world. Bitcoin is thus best understood as the first successfully implemented form of digital cash and digital hard money. With an automated and perfectly predictable monetary policy, and the ability to perform final settlement of large sums across the world in a matter of minutes, Bitcoin’s real competitive edge might just be as a store of value and network for the final settlement of large payments―a digital form of gold with a built-in settlement infrastructure.Ammous’ firm grasp of the technological possibilities as well as the historical realities of monetary evolution provides for a fascinating exploration of the ramifications of voluntary free market money. As it challenges the most sacred of government monopolies, Bitcoin shifts the pendulum of sovereignty away from governments in favor of individuals, offering us the tantalizing possibility of a world where money is fully extricated from politics and unrestrained by borders.The final chapter of the book explores some of the most common questions surrounding Bitcoin: Is Bitcoin mining a waste of energy? Is Bitcoin for criminals? Who controls Bitcoin, and can they change it if they please? How can Bitcoin be killed? And what to make of all the thousands of Bitcoin knockoffs, and the many supposed applications of Bitcoin’s ‘block chain technology’? The Bitcoin Standard is the essential resource for a clear understanding of the rise of the Internet’s decentralized, apolitical, free-market alternative to national central banks. Read more

The classic book on systems thinking―with more than half a million copies sold worldwide!"This is a fabulous book… This book opened my mind and reshaped the way I think about investing."―Forbes "Thinking in Systems is required reading for anyone hoping to run a successful company, community, or country. Learning how to think in systems is now part of change-agent literacy. And this is the best book of its kind."―Hunter Lovins In the years following her role as the lead author of the international bestseller, Limits to Growth―the first book to show the consequences of unchecked growth on a finite planet―Donella Meadows remained a pioneer of environmental and social analysis until her untimely death in 2001.Thinking in Systems is a concise and crucial book offering insight for problem solving on scales ranging from the personal to the global. Edited by the Sustainability Institute’s Diana Wright, this essential primer brings systems thinking out of the realm of computers and equations and into the tangible world, showing readers how to develop the systems-thinking skills that thought leaders across the globe consider critical for 21st-century life.Some of the biggest problems facing the world―war, hunger, poverty, and environmental degradation―are essentially system failures. They cannot be solved by fixing one piece in isolation from the others, because even seemingly minor details have enormous power to undermine the best efforts of too-narrow thinking.While readers will learn the conceptual tools and methods of systems thinking, the heart of the book is grander than methodology. Donella Meadows was known as much for nurturing positive outcomes as she was for delving into the science behind global dilemmas. She reminds readers to pay attention to what is important, not just what is quantifiable, to stay humble, and to stay a learner.In a world growing ever more complicated, crowded, and interdependent, Thinking in Systems helps readers avoid confusion and helplessness, the first step toward finding proactive and effective solutions. Read more

The epic story of how America turned the world economy into a weapon, upending decades of globalization to take on a new authoritarian axis—Russia, China, and Iran.It used to be that ravaging another country’s economy required blockading its ports and laying siege to its cities. Now all it takes is a statement posted online by the U.S. government.In Chokepoints, Edward Fishman, a former top State Department sanctions official, takes us deep into the back rooms of power to reveal the untold history of the last two decades of U.S. foreign policy, in which America renounced the gospel of globalization and waged a new kind of economic war. As Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Ayatollah Khamenei wreaked havoc on the world stage, mavericks within the U.S. government built a fearsome new arsenal of economic weapons, exploiting America’s dominance in global finance and technology. Successive U.S. presidents have relied on these unconventional weapons to address the most pressing national-security threats, for good and for ill.Chokepoints provides a thrilling account of one of the most critical geopolitical developments of our time, demystifying the complex strategies the U.S. government uses to harness the power of Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Big Oil against America’s enemies. At the center of the narrative is an eclectic group of policy innovators: the diplomats, lawyers, and financial whizzes who’ve masterminded America’s escalating economic wars against Russia, China, and Iran.Economic warfare has become the primary way the United States confronts international crises and counters rivals. Sometimes it has achieved spectacular success; other times, bitter failure. The result we live with today is a new world order: an economic arms race among great powers and a fracturing global economy. Chokepoints is the definitive account of how America pioneered this new, hard-hitting style of economic war—and how it’s changing the world. Read more

Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine? Is it culture, the weather, geography? Perhaps ignorance of what the right policies are? Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence? Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Korea, to take just one of their fascinating examples, is a remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The south forged a society that created incentives, rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic opportunities. The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions - with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories. Based on 15 years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson marshall extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, including: China has built an authoritarian growth machine. Will it continue to grow at such high speed and overwhelm the West?Are America’s best days behind it? Are we moving from a virtuous circle in which efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted to a vicious one that enriches and empowers a small minority?What is the most effective way to help move billions of people from the rut of poverty to prosperity? More philanthropy from the wealthy nations of the West? Or learning the hard-won lessons of Acemoglu and Robinson’s breakthrough ideas on the interplay between inclusive political and economic institutions? Why Nations Fail will change the way you look at—and understand—the world.PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio. Read more

Broken Money explores the history of money through the lens of technology. Politics can affect things temporarily and locally, but technology is what drives things forward globally and permanently.The book's goal is for the listener to walk away with a deep understanding of money and monetary history, both in terms of theoretical foundations and in terms of practical implications. From shells to gold, from papyrus bills of exchange to central banks, and from the invention of the telegraph to the creation of Bitcoin, Lyn Alden walks the listener through the emergence of new technologies that have shaped what we use as money over the ages. And beyond that, Alden explores the concept of what money is at its very foundation to give the listener a framework to analyze and compare different types of monetary technologies and monetary theories.The book also takes a distinctively human look at how money impacts the lives of real people, and how new monetary technologies shape the power structures within society.PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio. Read more

Which is more dangerous: a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? How much do parents really matter? How did the legalization of abortion affect the rate of violent crime?These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He is a much-heralded scholar who studies the riddles of everyday life, from cheating and crime to sports and child-rearing, and whose conclusions turn the conventional wisdom on its head. Thus the new field of study contained in this audiobook: Freakonomics.Levitt and co-author Stephen J. Dubner show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives: how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. In Freakonomics, they explore the hidden side of...well, everything. The inner working of a crack gang...the truth about real-estate agents...the secrets of the Klu Klux Klan.What unites all these stories is a belief that the modern world is even more intriguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking, and Freakonomics will redefine the way we view the modern world. Read more

Over a million copies sold! A fundamental influence on modern libertarianism, this classic guide to the basics of economic theory defends capitalism and the free market from economic myths that persist to this day.“A magnificent job of theoretical exposition.”—Ayn Rand Considered among the leading economic thinkers of the “Austrian School,” which includes Carl Menger, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich (F.A.) Hayek, and others, Henry Hazlitt wrote Economics in One Lesson in 1946. Concise and instructive, it is also deceptively prescient and far-reaching in its efforts to dissemble economic fallacies that are so prevalent they have almost become a new orthodoxy. Economic commentators across the political spectrum have credited Hazlitt with foreseeing the collapse of the global economy which occurred more than fifty years after the initial publication of Economics in One Lesson. Hazlitt’s focus on non-governmental solutions, strong—and strongly reasoned—anti-deficit position, and general emphasis on free markets, economic liberty of individuals, and the dangers of government intervention make Economics in One Lesson every bit as relevant and valuable today as it has been since publication. Read more

“Blending intellectual memoir, history, and economic and technological history, Varoufakis creates an intimate atmosphere that is a genuine pleasure to read ... It’s hard to read this book and deny its power ... illuminating.” - The Washington PostIn a revelatory and pathbreaking work, the #1 international bestselling economist opens our eyes to the new power that is reshaping our lives and the world . . .“The Thucydides of our time.” —Jeffrey SachsBig tech has replaced capitalism's twin pillars—markets and profit—with its platforms and rents. With every click and scroll, we labor like serfs to increase its power. Welcome to technofeudalism . . .Perhaps we were too distracted by the pandemic, or the endless financial crises, or the rise of TikTok. But under cover of them all, a new and more exploitative system has been taking hold. Insane sums of money that were supposed to re-float our economies after the crash of 2008 went to big tech instead. With it they funded the construction of their private cloud fiefdoms and privatized the internet. Technofeudalism says Yanis Varoufakis, is the new power that is reshaping our lives and the world, and is the greatest current threat to the liberal individual, to our efforts to avert climate catastrophe—and to democracy itself. It also lies behind the new geopolitical tensions, especially the New Cold War between the United States and China.Drawing on stories from Greek myth and pop culture, from Homer to Mad Men, Varoufakis explains this revolutionary transformation: how it enslaves our minds, how it rewrites the rules of global power, and, ultimately, what it will take overthrow it. Read more