What we've learned – and have still to learn – from the financial crisis

The Shifts and the Shocks

In The Shifts and the Shocks, Martin Wolf - one of the world's most influential economic commentators and author of Why Globalization Works - presents his controversial and highly original analysis of the economic course of the last seven years 
 
There have been many books that have sought to explain the causes and courses of the financial and economic crisis which began in 2007-8. The Shifts and the Shocks is not another detailed history of the crisis, but the most persuasive and complete account yet published of what the crisis should teach us us about modern economies and economics. 
 
The book identifies the origin of the crisis in the complex interaction between globalization, hugely destabilizing global imbalances and our dangerously fragile financial system. In the eurozone, these sources of instability were multiplied by the tragically defective architecture of the monetary union. It also shows how much of the orthodoxy that shaped monetary and financial policy before the crisis occurred was complacent and wrong. In doing so, it mercilessly reveals the failures of the financial, political and intellectual elites who ran the system. 
 
The book also examines what has been done to reform the financial and monetary systems since the worst of the crisis passed. 'Are we now on a sustainable course?' Wolf asks. 'The answer is no.' He explains with great clarity why 'further crises seem certain' and why the management of the eurozone in particular 'guarantees a huge political crisis at some point in the future.' Wolf provides far more ambitious and comprehensive plans for reform than any currently being implemented. 
 
Written with all the intellectual command and trenchant judgement that have made Martin Wolf one of the world's most influential economic commentators, The Shifts and the Shocks matches impressive analysis with no-holds-barred criticism and persuasive prescription for a more stable future. It is a book no-one with an interest in global affairs will want to neglect. 
 
 
"We have been inundated with books about the 'financial' aspects of the crisis. There have also been many books about specific institutions or memoirs by retired policy-makers. We need something different. There are two dimensions of the crisis that have received surprisingly little treatment. One is the link between developments in the macro-economy and the behaviour of the financial sector. The other is the global dimension of the crisis. Both these lie at the heart of Martin Wolf's analysis of the causes of the crisis and of his proposals to reduce the risk of another crisis. For these two reasons this is an important book that will be influential. Most important of all, it is in my view the right analysis and remedy" Mervyn King 
 
"To think straight about the causes and solutions of the financial crisis we must reject orthodox assumptions that more finance and global financial integration are limitlessly beneficial. The Shifts and the Shocks does just that, providing an intellectually sparkling and vital account of why the crisis occurred, and of the radical reforms needed if we are to avoid a future repeat" Adair Turner 
 
"Martin Wolf is unsurpassed in the world of economic journalists. His superb book may be the best of all those spawned by the Great Recession. It is analytical and rigorous without ever succumbing to fatalism or complacency" Lawrence Summers

Martin Wolf is Chief Economics Commentator at the Financial Times. He has been visiting professor at Oxford and Nottingham universities, a fellow of the World Economic Forum in Davos, and a member of the UK's Vickers Commission on Banking, which reported in 2011. His books include Why Globalization Works and Fixing Global Finance. In 2000, he was awarded the CBE for services to financial journalism, and in 2012 he received the Ischia International Journalism Award.

Martin Wolf

Martin Wolf has been an incisive commentator on economics and politics for a long time. This book is an excellent and thought-provoking synthesis of his views on democratic capitalism and how to fix it.

Ben Bernanke, former chair of the Federal Reserve

Martin Wolf is one of the deepest thinkers of our times and his latest book is a must-read! He brilliantly analyzes the causes of current crisis of democratic capitalism and presents the reforms needed to successfully rejuvenate it. He rightly calls for a new alliance of reformed democratic capitalist states to protect global peace, inclusive prosperity and the planet against plutocratic populism and tyranny. Hopefully, his words will be carefully read and heeded.

Nouriel Roubini, Professor, New York University

Martin Wolf is a great humanist and a sharp analytical mind. He unfurls here a bracing indictment of democratic capitalism and an inspiring defense of it. To defend the values of freedom and dignity, democracy and capitalism must both be reformed. A necessary book- and a guide -- for our times

Daniel Ziblatt, Professsor, Harvard University and co-author of HOW DEMOCRACIES DIE

Martin Wolf brings together many decades' worth of thought and analysis into this superb synthesis. An important guide for anyone seeking answers to the most difficult questions of our time.

Anne Applebaum, Atlantic staff writer and author of TWILIGHT OF DEMOCRACY

Martin Wolf is our wisest, most acute, and most experienced commentator. He has long been an optimist, but no more. He believes that today's market economy is no longer compatible with a stable liberal democracy. As Plato long ago warned, insecurity and fear can be the gateways to tyranny. Wolf's recommendations are smart and sensible and perhaps not too late. A must read for both optimists and pessimists.

Sir Angus Deaton, Nobel Prize in Economics 2015

Martin Wolf has written the definitive account of what ails capitalism and democracy. This staggeringly erudite and beautifully written book is sure to become required reading for anybody who wants to understand how democratic capitalism slid into a deep crisis, why it is worth rescuing, and how to do so.

Yascha Mounk, Professor, Johns Hopkins University and author of THE GREAT EXPERIMENT

The arrival of this book could not be timelier as the global economy darkens further. Who better than Martin Wolf, with his masterful knowledge of history and understanding of economics, to identify the twin threats of predatory capitalism and demagogic politics and to plot a narrow corridor to escape? It takes someone with a knowledge of the entire forest to isolate the rot at the base of the trees.

Carmen M. Reinhart, Professor of Economics, Harvard University

Passionate, alarmed, wise: Martin Wolf has poured his soul into the book that may be recognized as his masterpiece. In it, he confronts the disturbing truths dismissed by his own complacent generation, and their consequences, with which the young will contend.

Sir Paul Collier, author of THE FUTURE OF CAPITALISM

The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism will reach a wide and powerful audience. It will be read by world leaders and CEOs. If it convinces some of them to change tack, away from the plutocratic path that national and international economies are currently on, then we should all be grateful.

a cri de coeur ... This book, impressively researched, is ... a mine of information for anybody wanting to know about the forces driving the global economy in recent decades ... Democracy is the worst form of government - except for all the others, as Churchill once said. And the same is true of capitalism relative to other forms of economic organisation. Fixing both is the task.

The book's power lies in Wolf's central perception and the scale of the canvas he uses to illustrate it. The problems he describes - inequality, lack of social mobility, slowing productivity gains, the influence of money over politics, disaffection with democracy - are familiar, but by identifying them collectively as causes of the calamity he foresees, he gives new urgency to the need to address them.

Martin Wolf is one of the world's most influential economists ... His new book, The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism, is both his magnum opus and an explanation of his crisis of faith. ... Wolf argues that democracy and capitalism are complementary opposites: Opposites because capitalism depends on inequality of rewards while democracy depends on political equality, complementary because they both enshrine the principle of individual choice. But in recent decades this marriage of opposites has been falling apart, most importantly in the supposed standard-bearer of democratic capitalism, the United States. ... a penetrating analysis of Western society's ills

The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism draws on the wisdom accumulated over his distinguished career... The case he makes is authoritative and compelling.

The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism will reach a wide and powerful audience. It will be read by world leaders and CEOs. If it convinces some of them to change tack, away from the plutocratic path that national and international economies are currently on, then we should all be grateful.

Martin Wolf shines a light on the doom loop of democratic capitalism ... in his fine new book

We are living in an age when economic failings have shaken faith in global capitalism. Political failings have undermined trust in liberal democracy and in the very notion of truth. The ties that ought to bind open markets to free and fair elections are being strained and rejected, even in democracy's notional heartlands. Around the world, democratic capitalism, which depends on the determined separation of power from wealth, is in crisis. Some now argue that capitalism is better without democracy; others that democracy is better without capitalism. 
 
This book is a forceful rejoinder to both views. It analyses how the marriage between capitalism and democracy has become so fraught and yet insists that a divorce would be an almost unimaginable calamity. Martin Wolf, one of the wisest public voices on global affairs, argues that for all its recent failings - slowing growth, increasing inequality, widespread popular disillusion - democratic capitalism, though inherently fragile, remains the best system we know for human flourishing. Capitalism and democracy are complementary opposites: they need each other if either is to thrive. Wolf's superb exploration of their marriage shows us how citizenship and a shared faith in the common good are not romantic slogans but the essential foundation of our economic and political freedom.

Martin Wolf

Praise for The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism

Martin Wolf has been an incisive commentator on economics and politics for a long time. This book is an excellent and thought-provoking synthesis of his views on democratic capitalism and how to fix it.

Martin Wolf is one of the deepest thinkers of our times and his latest book is a must-read! He brilliantly analyzes the causes of current crisis of democratic capitalism and presents the reforms needed to success ...

Martin Wolf is a great humanist and a sharp analytical mind. He unfurls here a bracing indictment of democratic capitalism and an inspiring defense of it. To defend the values of freedom and dignity, democracy an ...

Martin Wolf has been an incisive commentator on economics and politics for a long time. This book is an excellent and thought-provoking synthesis of his views on democratic capitalism and how to fix it.

Martin Wolf is one of the deepest thinkers of our times and his latest book is a must-read! He brilliantly analyzes the causes of current crisis of democratic capitalism and presents the reforms needed to success ...

Martin Wolf is a great humanist and a sharp analytical mind. He unfurls here a bracing indictment of democratic capitalism and an inspiring defense of it. To defend the values of freedom and dignity, democracy an ...

Martin Wolf has been an incisive commentator on economics and politics for a long time. This book is an excellent and thought-provoking synthesis of his views on democratic capitalism and how to fix it.

Martin Wolf is one of the deepest thinkers of our times and his latest book is a must-read! He brilliantly analyzes the causes of current crisis of democratic capitalism and presents the reforms needed to success ...

Martin Wolf is a great humanist and a sharp analytical mind. He unfurls here a bracing indictment of democratic capitalism and an inspiring defense of it. To defend the values of freedom and dignity, democracy an ...

Books by Martin Wolf

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